Debate will force Trump and Harris to answer

For the past week, Donald Trump has been under fire for his appearance at Arlington National Cemetery – the final resting place of hundreds of thousands of soldiers, including those from recent conflicts – at a wreath-laying ceremony for soldiers killed in an attack during the botched Afghanistan withdrawal three years ago, a low point in the Biden administration.

The crux of the matter revolves around reports that Trump’s staff ignored requests not to film political content at the cemetery and got into an argument with an Arlington official. The campaign’s response has been very mixed. There was no need for Trump to bring his own video cameras to the cemetery, and now Vice President Kamala Harris has intervened in the debate and attacked Trump.

But the much bigger debate – about everything – is taking place in Philadelphia, on ABC News on September 10. The last presidential debate, on June 27, had enormous consequences, as Joe Biden’s sluggish performance forced him out of the race and replaced him as the Democratic nominee with Harris.

There is also no certainty that there will be a second clash between Harris and Trump. Time is running out. The decisive state for both election campaigns, Pennsylvania, begins early voting less than a week after the debate in Philadelphia.

This is the seventh such debate in the general election for Trump (three in 2016 against Hillary Clinton, two in 2020 against Biden, and the Biden debate in June of this year) and the first for Harris. She also failed to change the agreed-upon rules to turn on the microphones only during the time allotted to a candidate. That didn’t work and the muting of the microphones will remain unchanged. Harris thought that Trump could not control his outbursts and this could help her cause.

Even though Harris won’t have the articulation problems that Biden faced, this debate is likely to be the pivotal point of the election for her campaign. She did a good job at her convention and her running mate, Tim Walz, is doing well. Last week she even successfully answered some questions from CNN. The debate (and a possible second debate) is the missing piece.

Trump is far better known to voters than Harris, who, like all vice presidents, has mostly been present in the background, while Trump has been constantly in the spotlight since he took the escalator to the basement of Trump Tower nine years ago.

While Harris needs to introduce himself to voters, it would be nice if ABC could get Trump to focus on the questions with actual precision or some grounding in reality, rather than his usual diversions and obfuscations. The debate could be an opportunity not to let him get away with it like he usually does at his loud rallies. Last time, his debate performance wasn’t really successful because Biden lost the evening by a landslide.

It is important to hold both the cautious Harris and the bombastic Trump accountable and give them both a chance to respond to things they would rather not talk about, like the crisis surrounding the withdrawal from Afghanistan for her and the turmoil in Arlington for him.

Unlike the last debate, there will be no candidate changes. One of these candidates will be the next president.

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