Tuesday night’s high-stakes debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris will be one of the defining events of this year — maybe this decade.
Two months before Election Day, the race is about as close as can be, and the candidates will have no greater opportunity to make their contrasts stark than after they shake hands in Philadelphia.
Longtime Republican strategist Karl Rove says Trump has the more difficult task because he’s the one running on substantive issues — as opposed to Harris’ vacuous “joy”-filled campaign.
That’s why it’s particularly important the former president stays on message.
What he says and how he says it will matter throughout the evening. But his two-minute closing statement, which will follow Harris’ and put a period on the event, is especially important: It’s his best chance to clearly articulate a vision for the country and prosecute the case against Harris’.
If he wants to win the night and the election, he’ll have to do just that and avoid the rambling rants and personal attacks that have held back his campaign.
Here’s what that might look like:
Do you remember when going to the grocery store and stopping at the gas station didn’t fill you with dread?
Do you remember when the news out of the Middle East was about our enemies being brought to heel and peace deals being forged?
Do you remember when our southern border wasn’t an international embarrassment?
It’s no coincidence the last time you remember any of this, I was your president.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris spent trillions of hard-earned taxpayer dollars to drive up the prices of the things you and your families need to survive.
To add insult to injury, they called their expensive, mini Green New Deal — for which my opponent cast the tie-breaking vote — the Inflation Reduction Act.
Were they mocking you or lying to you?
The Biden-Harris administration exudes weakness and incompetence — and our enemies smell blood in the water.
Its reckless retreat from Afghanistan cost 13 American service members their lives and invited Russia’s war against Ukraine and Hamas’ barbaric attack on Israel.
It deliberately opened our southern border after my administration spent years securing it, putting American citizens at risk.
Arizona, Harris cares more about what her San Francisco friends think about her immigration stance than the damage it’s done to you.
The administration keeps putting the screws on our energy producers, making you foot the bill for policies that empower our enemies abroad — and Pennsylvania, you’ll lose the jobs and wealth the fracking industry has created.
Enough is enough.
Kamala Harris ran for president four years ago on the most radical platform this country has ever seen.
Green New Deal? Of course. Abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement and defunding the police? Check. Fracking? Ban it. Your health insurance? She said it was as good as gone. Eighty percent tax rates? A “fantastic” idea.
Now she’s trying to backtrack, insisting she doesn’t believe anything she said four years ago.
And all that’s coming from the person who lied to your face about Joe Biden’s condition. She still insists he’s fit to be your commander in chief though each and every one of you knows he’s not.
Kamala Harris can’t serve you because she doesn’t have any respect for you.
She doesn’t think she owes you the truth — or much of anything else.
I’m not known for my humility, but I realize I’m not perfect and some of you may never like me for who I am.
In November, though, you should judge us both for what we’ve done.
I made you wealthier, safer and prouder to be an American.
Biden and Harris have left you poorer, less safe and less proud.
I fixed our immigration problem only to watch the vice president revive it as border czar.
They spent four years trying to frame me for Russian collusion and then inspired Vladimir Putin to launch a land war in Europe I would have stopped.
They blamed me for a pandemic and took credit for the vaccines my administration produced at warp speed.
They said they’d restore normalcy — but sowed chaos at home and abroad.
They said they’d be honest and then tried to gaslight you into thinking they haven’t made your lives worse.
I can’t stand to watch it any longer. I’m asking for your vote because both you and I know that together, we can do so much better — because we already have. Thank you, and God bless America.
