What to Expect From Tonight’s Debate

Millions of people are expected to tune into what will most likely be the only live debate between the two American presidential candidates airing Tuesday night. Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump will each have the chance to answer a series of questions about their candidatures and both domestic and foreign policy over a 90-minute period without the fear of interruption – candidates’ mics will be muted while the other is speaking and the interviewers will not be permitted to fact-check their answers in real-time.

The event will be hosted by ABC News with moderating done by veteran “World News Tonight” journalists David Muir and Linsey Davis. Hard-hitting questions over the candidate’s positions on Russia’s war in Ukraine, the Israeli-Hamas War, and threats from China and other global powers are expected. Unlike all past elections since 1988, the rules and layout of this year’s debates were negotiated between each campaign instead of decided by a neutral commission.

But that’s not the only first in this year’s election. 

Vice President Kamala Harris took the world by storm in July when she clinched the Democratic Party’s nomination just days after President Joe Biden unceremoniously announced he was pulling his name from the ballot. The shocking move by an incumbent president was precipitated by Biden’s devastating performance at the first presidential debate between the President and Trump on June 27. Biden appeared frail and lost his train of thought several times during the discussion, leading opponents and many supporters alike to question whether he was up for the task of leading the country for another four years. Harris is the first woman of color to accept a major party’s nomination for president in US history.

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Trump is making history, too. He will be the first candidate of a major political party that is a repeat felon – the former President was convicted of 34 felony counts in May for his involvement in paying porn star Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about an alleged affair between the two in 2016. The candidate is awaiting sentencing for these convictions and faces three other criminal cases across the US for election tampering and more, but proceedings have been delayed until after Election Day on Nov. 5. If he wins this fall and is sentenced to jail time, Americans may have the first leader to govern from behind bars. He will also be the first candidate who has already been impeached by Congress twice – first in 2019 for abuse of power over an alleged quid pro quo agreement with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, and again in 2021 for his role in the insurrection on Capitol Hill that occurred on Jan. 6.

The candidates are expected to spar over domestic and foreign policy issues in addition to dodging character insults from their opponents. The Harris campaign has shied away from clearly laying out her camp’s policy platform in the weeks since she officially became the Democratic Party nominee, avoiding direct responses about her stance on support for Ukraine and similar issues. Trump’s platform, on the other hand, can be seen through his past policy decisions and his many public statements about these ongoing conflicts and broader issues.

Here’s what to expect on the topic of foreign policy at tonight’s unprecedented presidential debate.

Democratic candidate Kamala Harris

Harris has been practicing for the debate for weeks in Pennsylvania with her top policy advisers, including:

• Grace Landrieu, Harris’ campaign’s policy director
• Phil Gordon, Harris’ national security adviser
• Colin Kahl, a former Pentagon official who has been called the Department of Defense’s point man on Ukraine’s counteroffensive strategy
• Brian Nelson, a former Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence who oversaw the imposition of US sanctions against Russia
• Phillipe Reines, Hillary Clinton’s former campaign communications adviser, playing the role of Trump

The campaign team has reportedly drilled the former prosecutor on how she will respond to questions about her potential administration’s handling of the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Israel along with avoiding further violence in the Middle East and Asia. She has publicly supported the Biden administration’s approach to aid for Ukraine and pledged to continue supporting allies on several occasions.

“As president, I will never waver in defense of America’s security and ideals, because in the enduring struggle between democracy and tyranny, I know where I stand and I know where the United States belongs,” Harris said during her speech at the Democratic convention last month.

The Vice President learned about the dangers of Russian influence through her work on the congressional Intelligence Committee. “She was really kind of thrown into what was the most critical national security issue at that time, which was defending against Russia’s threat to our democracy,” said Halie Soifer, Harris’ national security adviser in the Senate. The candidate’s history as a former state prosecutor greatly influences how she views countries like Russia and China, the adviser added.

Republican candidate Donald Trump

Trump’s preparations have reportedly been a bit different. The former President told NBC News that, “There’s not a lot you can do” in terms of preparation. “Either you know the subject or not,” he said. He has admitted to reviewing potential questions with his former vice president’s national security adviser, Keith Kellogg, who now runs a think tank with the slogan, “America First.” Kellogg defended Trump’s quid pro quo offer to Ukraine in 2019 that sought to strong-arm Kyiv into providing compromising information about Biden’s family members. He also drafted a plan for Trump to pressure an end to the war in Ukraine by forcing Kyiv to negotiate at a loss or risk a complete cut-off in US aid.

The felon has also reportedly sought advice from his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who became a senior adviser to the President during his time in office and has been critical of ongoing American aid to Ukraine. Veteran foreign policy officials from his tenure were likely left out of this election’s debate prep due to loyalty issues stemming from their public criticism of the former President since he left the White House.

“If we had a real president, a president that knew – that was respected by Putin... he would have never invaded Ukraine,” Trump claimed during the first debate with Biden earlier this year. He went on to say that he could end the conflict in a day, without offering any details.

Trump’s campaign communications director Steven Cheung confirmed the former President’s intention to change US policy toward Ukraine in an interview with the Associated Press in July.

“A top priority in his second term will be to quickly negotiate an end to the Russia-Ukraine war. Trump believes European nations should be paying more of the cost of the conflict,” Cheung said.

Watch the debate live, airing at 9 p.m. EST local time (4 a.m. Kyiv time) on NBC or several other streaming networks.