WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton has as much experience as any Democrat in debating Donald Trump.
The 2016 presidential campaign, when she was her party’s nominee, included three of the six general-election debates Trump has participated in. Those faceoffs went a long way toward shaping the country’s vision of his candidacy and what he would be like as president.
Trump, of course, went on to win the 2016 election — an outcome that still haunts Democrats.
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When Clinton called this week to discuss her old debate coach, Karen Dunn, who is helping out Vice President Kamala Harris this time around, I took the opportunity to ask about her experience on the debate stage with Trump.
“The consensus was that I won all three debates and that I was well prepared,” Clinton said.
Here are excerpts from our conversation, which have been lightly edited and condensed.
Q: What do you remember about your own preparations to debate Trump?
A: It was the first debate when Trump literally ridiculed me for preparing. This was not something we had thought about beforehand, because who thought we could be ridiculed for preparing for a presidential debate in front of 85 or 90 million people?
So basically, I said, yeah, I did prepare. And I’ll tell you something else I prepared for: I prepared to be president. Because I had the confidence. I knew the material. I felt comfortable. I also knew I had to brush Trump back and not let him be the center of attention all the time.
Q: What advice do you have for Harris as she prepares to debate Trump?
A: She’s proven to be a good debater, both in her races in California and in her debate with Mike Pence. So I think she needs to be prepared enough that she feels really comfortable going on both offense and defense against Trump, because there’s a lot to cover with him.
Q: Have you talked with Harris about this debate?
A: He doesn’t answer the questions. He doesn’t come with any specifics. It appears from the reporting that he is going with a scorched-earth approach and will just try to tear her down, which is his usual go-to strategy.
You have to go back at him about his really terrible record as president, the kinds of things he has said that he wants to do next time around, his association with Project 2025.
I think she has a lot of good ammunition.
Q: Do you think her general strategy of ignoring or diminishing Trump is the proper approach?
A: I think it’s working well. I mean, I think that her excellent, energetic campaign is proving to be very attractive to people. And all he has to do or say is to tear her down. He has nothing positive to say about our country or the world, and I think she’s handling him very well.
Q: Is there anything else from your experience with Trump that she can learn from or take away from?
A: Well, I think Philippe [Reines, a former adviser to Clinton who has dressed up as Trump in both her and Harris’ debate-prep sessions] playing Trump is perfect because honestly, he did such a good job, conveying the sort of whole package of Trump for me, that I am absolutely sure he is doing the same thing for the vice president.
Q: Have you talked with Harris about how to approach the debate?
A: I talked with her about a number of things. She just should not be baited. She should bait him. He can be rattled. He doesn’t know how to respond to substantive, direct attacks.
And I think that from her prosecutorial background, I think that’s what she will be equipped to do. I mean, when I said he was a Russian puppet and he just sputtered onstage, I think that’s an example of how you get out a fact about him that really unnerves him.
The more that he can be exposed onstage — he’s not a strong leader. He’s not a stable leader. The more that can be exposed, the more people will have doubts about him. And that’s really what this debate is meant to do, because the people already locked in to supporting either her or him are unlikely to change.
But there still is enough potential movement in the key states where people can be persuaded that they don’t want to sign on for another four years of him.
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