U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) questions Attorney General William Barr as Barr testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee at the Dirksen Building on May 1, 2019, in Washington, D.C. | Source: The Washington Post / Getty
The long-awaited, highly-anticipated presidential debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris is soon upon us, and everyone seems to have their own idea about what to expect. But, really, no one knows what’s going to happen Tuesday night.
In a perfect America, a former state prosecutor, attorney general and U.S. senator with decades of experience arguing in courtrooms and congressional chambers would easily destroy a boorish, rambling blowhard who boasts about speaking in incomplete fragments of thought and has never met an observable fact he didn’t want to call “fake news.” But this isn’t that America. This America has already elected Trump once, watched him try to highjack democracy after losing his bid for reelection, and is still dangerously close to electing him into the White House for a second time. So, really, who knows?
MORE: ‘I’m Speaking’: Kamala Harris’ Top Debate Moments
Still, there’s a lot to be said about how Harris has already shown, on a national scale, that she is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to how she performs going head-to-head with members of the old white party, including former Attorney General William Barr, who Harris famously shredded in 2019 during a Senate hearing in which he was questioned about whether Trump or anyone in the White House directed him to target Trump opponents for investigation.
“Has the president or anyone at the White House asked or suggested that you open an investigation of anyone?” Harris asked Barr in a clip that has recently been making the rounds on social media.
“It seems you’d remember something like that and be able to tell us,” she said after Barr pretended he didn’t understand the direct and easily comprehensive question he was asked in the language he speaks.
“I’m trying to grapple with the word ‘suggest,’” Barr eventually responded. “I mean there have been discussions of matters out there that they’ve not asked me to open an investigation.”
The way Harris was going full Clair Huxtable on Barr while he was squirming around like a child explaining how he lost his homework and pretending he was at a disadvantage because he didn’t have a dictionary handy — it’s just hard not to hope Harris brings that same energy on Tuesday.
The same happened in 2018 when Harris stumped Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh by asking him, “Can you think of any laws that give government the power to make decisions about the male body?”
Of course, grilling government officials during Senate hearings isn’t the same as answering questions during a presidential debate while navigating the spectacle of an opponent like Trump, who pivots to insults, dog whistling and conspiracy theories at the drop of a dime and has a track record of derailing debates from resembling anything even remotely focused on policy and/or truth.
So, again, we’ll just have to see how it goes, but there’s a reason Trump has been acting like he’s afraid to debate Harris — and maybe, just maybe, he’s right to be.
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