Tulsi Gabbard Helping Trump Prep For Debate

WASHINGTON, DC (ANI) – Gearing up for his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, GOP candidate Donald Trump, has brought in the former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard to help prep, the New York Times citing two people aware with Trump’s schedule, reported.

Trump and Harris are set to face off in the ABC News debate on September 10.

Gabbard, who left the Democratic Party after her 2020 presidential run and has rebranded herself as a celebrity among Trump’s base of support, has long been friendly with Trump and was also speculated to be his running mate for some time.

Garbbard’s involvement in Trump’s debate preparation, was partly because of her own performance in a 2019 Democratic presidential primary debate, when Gabbard eviscerated Harris in a memorable onstage encounter.

Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for Trump, said the former president has “proven to be one of the best debaters in political history…He does not need traditional debate prep but will continue to meet with respected policy advisers and effective communicators like Tulsi Gabbard, who successfully dominated Kamala Harris on the debate stage in 2020.”

Though Trump says he “doesn’t need to” prepare for debates, the former President has spent more time this year practicing for debates than he did in either 2016 or 2020.

He still doesn’t do traditional debate prep. Nobody played Mr. Biden in his sessions ahead of their CNN debate on June 27.

Notably, Gabbard brings some key qualities to Trump’s role: She’s a woman, at a moment when Trump is for a second time facing a woman as his general election rival; she’s a former House member, giving her policy experience; and, perhaps most importantly for Trump, she has been on a debate stage with Harris.

However, Gabbard’s attacks on Harris in the July 2019 debate, all came from the left. She alleged that Harris, when she was a district attorney in San Francisco, “put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana.”

She also accused Harris of having obstructed evidence that could have let an innocent man leave death row, doing so only when a court “forced her to.”

Harris, on the other hand, replied that she was “proud of making a decision to not just give fancy speeches, or be in a legislative body and give speeches on the floor, but actually doing the work.”

Following the debate, Harris mocked Gabbard’s low standing in the polls. Eventually, Harris dropped out of that race in December 2019, and Gabbard did the same months later, in March 2020.