Trump taps Tulsi Gabbard for help preparing for debate with Kamala Harris

Donald Trump has tapped Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic Hawaii representative, to help prepare him for next month’s presidential debate with Kamala Harris.

The selection of Gabbard as rehearsal stand-in for the vice president, first reported by the New York Times, suggests that despite denials, the former president may be planning to prepare for the 10 September clash with greater-than-usual diligence.

Gabbard, an Iraq war veteran, had been floated as a potential Trump vice-presidential pick. The former Democrat fell out with her party after standing in the 2020 presidential primaries after being smeared by Hillary Clinton as a “Russian asset”.

That generated a lawsuit in which Gabbard alleged that Clinton’s suggestion she was the Democratic candidate favored by Russia was “retribution” for Gabbard backing Clinton’s rival Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primary.

But Gabbard’s selection for Harris debate prep carries a potent history: during the 2020 Democratic primaries, Gabbard proved a formidable opponent to Harris when she excoriated the then California senator for jailing hundreds of Californians for marijuana violations while she was the state’s attorney general and then bragged about her own use of the drug.

“Kamala Harris is an empty suit,” Gabbard told Fox News last week. “In 2019, I confronted her with her hypocrisy – that what she said was very different from what she actually did.”

In an email to the Times, the Trump campaign said their candidate “does not need traditional debate prep but will continue to meet with respected policy advisers and effective communicators like Tulsi Gabbard”.

Despite downplaying the debate prep, Trump’s handlers are said to be wary of their candidate coming off too hot, as he did with Biden in 2020. This summer’s rematch was less a victory for Trump than a potential for disaster for a less-than-present Biden given his poor performance in the June debate.

Trump also faces difficulties in how to debate a woman after he was accused of being overbearing toward Hillary Clinton in 2016 and for placing several women who had accused her husband, Bill Clinton, of sexual misconduct in the front rows of the studio audience.

After Gabbard’s debate criticism of Harris in 2020, the now-vice president mocked Gabbard’s low standing in the polls. But Harris dropped out first, followed a month later by Gabbard.