Fox & Friends co-host Lawrence Jones gave Donald Trump a key piece of advice heading into Tuesday’s debate with Vice-President Kamala Harris: don’t be racist.
During Monday’s show, Jones argued that Harris will try to goad Trump into a ‘race war’ but urged the Republican nominee to not take the bait.
“Kamala Harris is going to try to do is get him into this race war, right? To be vicious, to attack her as a woman,” Jones said in a clip highlighted by Mediaite. “Don’t put voters in that position where they have to choose between their economic situation and feeling sympathetic or personal.”
“She may go low and call him a racist on the stage,” he added. “But his response should be, ‘You said that about Joe Biden too, and you went to work for him.’ So you have to be very strategic at that, because they want ads of him eviscerating her from her personality and her being a woman.”
Trump has a long history of riling up his base by leaning into racism and sexism.
He has deployed that familiar playbook against Harris, telling an audience of Black journalists in July that she “happened to turn Black” a few years ago, saying that “all of a sudden, she made a turn” in her identity.
The Republican presidential nominee has also reposted a meme suggesting that Harris got this far in politics due to sexual favors.
Tuesday’s debate will be hosted by ABC News at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia and will mark the first time Harris face off against Trump since becoming the Democratic nominee for president.
It will likely be the only debate between the two presidential candidates since it is the only one either campaigns have agreed to thus far. So, the stakes are high.
Republicans believe this is Trump’s best shot of regaining his footing in the presidential race since Harris replaced Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket. But he has to be disciplined and stay on message.
They are urging the former president to focus on critiquing Harris’ policy record during the debate and to avoid lobbing personal attacks at the vice-president.
But that might prove to be difficult since Trump believes he is “entitled” to personal attacks on Harris.
