Page 16 of 107 Days

I had expected to debate J. D. Vance and had started to prep for that. Now we began to prepare to debate Donald Trump instead.

The first session happened around the table in the vice president’s residence.

Later, we’d move to the basement at Howard University, fitted out to mimic the set on which the real debate would take place.

I’d started my political career freshman year at Howard, running for a seat on the liberal arts student council, against a smart, tough Jersey girl.

I still consider it one of my hardest races.

That day, we started with the broad strokes of debate strategy.

For better or worse, a presidential debate is a television event, not a contest on who knows the most about policy.

The aim, my team stressed, was not to be the biggest wonk on the stage.

The aim was to walk off leaving the voters comfortable that you have what it takes to be president.

A lot of that is demeanor. You need to be confident, clear, and unrattled.

The person who is winning, the team reminded me, is the person who is having the most fun.

I got into the habit of drawing a little smiley face at the top of the blank pad that was placed on the podium so that I would keep that in mind.

Then I drew a line bisecting the page. On one side would go a note about a Trump assertion; on the other, my response.

Karen Dunn was the leader of my debate prep team. She is an experienced trial lawyer, a veteran of big, complex cases. If you need a wartime consigliere, she is the one. She is a taskmaster, very smart, and she really cared about me.

Among the advice I got that first session:

Be on offense continually, especially on issues perceived to be vulnerabilities.

He will try to rattle and distract you. Don’t fall for it.

Be prepared to say “That’s a lie.”

Remember, the economy is what keeps people up at night.

With Rohini Kosoglu, my former Senate chief of staff and domestic policy adviser, we started to create the debate book, a binder of issues that we gradually reduced to a stack of cards on which we developed and refined talking points, lines of attack, rebuttals to the kinds of lies Trump might spout.

We had a card for every nuance of every subject, and once I memorized what was on that card, I’d draw a big, loopy X across it.

I am not a trained seal; I’m not going to memorize lines and spout them. I have to understand the logic and building blocks of every argument so I can present it clearly and defend it persuasively.

We also addressed the painful matter of imagining what kinds of personal attacks Trump might mount against me.

A man who had no floor, who could go infinitely low, get infinitely cruel.

He’d disparaged the war hero Senator John McCain, mocked a reporter’s disability. The gutter was deep for this guy.

I’d had quite a big team in the room to get the most diverse range of input I could on how answers would land. But for the part of the prep focusing on personal assaults, I narrowed the group to less than a handful.

“He might ask you if you’ve ever had an abortion,” one adviser said.

If he did, the response would be: That’s none of your business and that’s not what we’re here for . Someone made a dark joke that if he got that personal, I should ask if he took Viagra. Another: Had he ever paid for an abortion?

In the end, he didn’t go down that track. He probably knew a question like that would be exceedingly thin ice for him—and would infuriate just about every woman in America.