Veteran Political Strategist Reprises Role as Trump for Debate Prep
As Kamala Harris gears up for her first debate with former President Donald Trump, she is relying on a unique and experienced aide: Philippe Reines. Reines, who once likened Trump to a “malevolent George Costanza” and a “malfunctioning appliance,” is playing the role of Trump in mock debates to prepare Harris for the high-stakes showdown on September 10.
The man behind the mask
Philippe Reines, a seasoned political strategist and former deputy assistant secretary of state, is no stranger to this role. He previously stood in as Trump during Hillary Clinton’s debate preparations in 2016. Reines takes his job seriously, though he skips some of the more theatrical elements. “I dressed up like him, but I didn’t put on an orange face or a wig,” Reines shared on The Michael Smerconish Program on SiriusXM. “Although one day I put self-tanner on one half of my face and no one noticed, so I didn’t bother again.”
A storied career
Reines has a long history in politics, having worked on Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign before joining Hillary Clinton’s first bid for the White House in 2008. He earned a reputation as Clinton’s “Michael Clayton-esque image man and fixer,” according to Vogue magazine. Clinton herself described Reines as “passionate, loyal, and shrewd” in her memoir Hard Choices, noting that she could “always trust him to speak his mind.”
Reines became Clinton’s “Trump whisperer” during her 2016 campaign. About three weeks before Clinton’s first debate with Trump, Reines joined a team of advisors in a ballroom at the Doral Arrowwood Hotel in Westchester. The group, led by Ron Klain (now Joe Biden’s chief of staff), set up a replica debate stage and ran through eight full debate simulations. “It’s kinda like batting practice,” Reines explained. “In the case of Donald Trump, a lot of it is learning how to filter out the noise and expect the unexpected.”
To prepare for his role, Reines meticulously studied Trump’s performances in Republican primary debates, even watching them with the sound off to mimic Trump’s mannerisms and body language. A video from their 2016 mock debates shows Reines and Clinton laughing as they practice avoiding an unwanted hug from Trump.
Reines aimed to strike a balance between embodying Trump’s style and getting under Clinton’s skin. “I didn’t stand there all the time yelling ‘crooked Hillary!’ or ‘email email email!’ That’s not helpful,” he said. Instead, he balanced his knowledge of both Trump and Clinton to make the simulations as realistic as possible.
The challenges of debating Trump
Reines believes that debating Trump is uniquely challenging because of his frequent lies and mistruths. “There’s a hard balance where you wanna stand up for yourself, but you also don’t wanna kill time,” he noted. Clinton echoed this sentiment in a New York Times op-ed, stating, “It is a waste of time to try to refute Mr. Trump’s arguments like in a normal debate. It’s nearly impossible to identify what his arguments even are. He starts with nonsense and then digresses into blather.”
Reines argues that Democrats need to adopt a more aggressive approach when debating Trump. “Democrats need to be able to communicate and attack in the same kind of blunt language that has until now been inappropriate in national politics,” he wrote in a 2019 Politico article. “So forget the ‘glass houses’ rule and get out your slingshot.”
Harris’s strategy
Reines’s advice for Harris is likely to be similar: don’t get bogged down defending your record; hit back instead. Harris has already shown a willingness to match her opponents’ energy in previous debates. In 2020, when Mike Pence repeatedly interrupted her, she famously retorted, “Mr. Vice President, I’m speaking.”
The road ahead
Despite the challenges, Harris may have an advantage over Clinton. Trump was unknown in 2016; now, there is more footage and behavior to analyze. Harris’s background as a prosecutor and attorney general could also give her an edge. “In those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds: predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain,” she has said. “So hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump’s type.”