Businessman Anthony Scaramucci, who very briefly served as White House Communications Director during former President Donald Trump’s tenure, on Friday weighed in on whether the ripple created by Vice President Kamala Harris’ entry into the race is slowly settling down and what she should be doing in the Sept. 10 debate hosted by Disney-owned ABC News.
Honeymoon Over? Harris’ campaign is not a proper campaign, suggested Scaramucci in the latest episode of the Rest Is Politics US podcast he cohosts with British journalist Katty Kay. When his co-hosts brought up the point that some Democrats are sending feelers that they are nervous, Scaramucci said Harris was going to rallies and was speaking off prompters but the confrontational element of the campaign was missing.
“There’s the confrontation that the American public wants to see whether people like it or not, they want you in a heated position; they want you in a hot seat and they want you to subject yourself to questions,” he said. “The American public has decided that if you can answer questions extemporaneously, you’re so showing a depth of knowledge, some level of wisdom and some level of experience,” he said.
If the vice president doesn’t start doing that it is going to hurt her not only with the right-wing media but also with the general public, the ex-White House aide said. The general public will begin wondering whether a race in the U.S. can be of a teleprompter and whether it be without holding press conferences, he added.
If that is the case, Scaramucci sees it as creating a lot of murkiness, and a lot of good opposition research people will begin to make up policies for the vice president that are not hers’. The Democratic camp might be thinking they can do this without interviews, banking on their confidence in internal polling averages, he said.
Scaramucci said the situation is similar to what prevailed just after Labor Day during Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016. The former secretary of state was well ahead but she went on to lose, he noted. “I would be worried if I were them,” he said. Referring to Trump, he said, “This guy is formidable,” adding “You may not like him. He does things that are misogynistic; he does things that are absurd.”
Co-host Kay said Harris had an almost perfect five weeks from her launch up to the Democratic National Convention even as her rival Trump had a pretty few bad weeks over August. Yet his poll numbers didn’t crash, which has caused nervousness among the Democratic camp, who were looking for a strong lead and much better poll numbers after the DNC, she said.
The area where Harris is the weakest is on the economic message and immigration – two issues on which Trump is still ahead in the polls, Kay said.
The Presidential Debate: Scaramucci thinks the campaign starts in earnest on Sept. 10, the date of the first debate. Offering her a piece of advice, the SkyBridge Capital founder said, “Be careful, don’t Hillary Clintonize the debate. Do not be the policy wonk. Do not study the policy,” he said.
The American people are looking for a “verbal sparring match,” adding that “What they want is they want you to best Donald Trump; they want you to parry him and they want you to explain to people that you’re more confident and you’re a safer pair of hands.”
If Harris can stand up to Trump, it will give people the confidence that she can stand up to people such as Russian President Vladimir Putin, Scaramucci said. If she chooses to go to her policy book and list every policy, she is really going to get hurt by Trump, he said.
His co-host said Harris has to stay calm and focused in the light of the theatrics Trump will display, and then he needs to be needled with words like “old” or “small.”
Scaramucci, meanwhile, the vice president has to be offensive on California, describing it as an amazing economy. She shouldn’t take the bait when Trump personally attacks her, he said. “If I was her media coach I’d say…..we’re gonna get you in front of a camera in front of a microphone in front of a zoom, get the microphone in your face and we’re going to work on eliminating the cackle or the laugh or whatever you want to call.”
Did You Know?
- Congress Is Making Huge Investments. Get Tips On What They Bought And Sold Ahead Of The 2024 Election With Our Easy-to-Use Tool
Image via Shutterstock
© 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Comments
Trade confidently with insights and alerts from analyst ratings, free reports and breaking news that affects the stocks you care about.
