[Dion]

Donald Trump: ‘I Hate My Opponent’

DONALD TRUMP HAS NO PLANS TO HEED the advice of his aides and limit himself to policy contrasts when he debates Kamala Harris. He wants to make it personal.

“This is just the way I am. I hate my opponent. I hate my opponents,” Trump told a confidant who advised the former president to consider backing away from calling the vice president “stupid” or “dumb” at their high-profile standoff in a few weeks, which he has done repeatedly.

Trump explained to the confidant that he’s treating Harris the same way he did Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton. “Hillary, Joe, Kamala. It doesn’t matter. I just hate them.”

To another adviser, Trump was blunt about taking on Harris: “I’m going to be mean.”

“If Harris is an idiot and she holds her own, then you could have two idiots on stage,” a Trump insider fretted. “Call her ideas stupid. Don’t call her stupid.”

Marc Short, a former top Trump administration official who prepared Vice President Mike Pence for his 2020 debate against Harris, said Pence made sure to not make it personal.

“You can’t get around the fact that having a white male debate a minority female creates a different dynamic,” said Short. “And you’re always sensitive to the media saying you’re ‘mansplaining’ if you get into a conversation in which you appear to try to put down your opponent. That’s always delicate. Trump doesn’t do delicate well.”

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/donald-...is-debate-prep