Kamala Harris was by all accounts the winner of the recent debate with Donald Trump ahead of the US presidential election.
But what was the “secret weapon” that the Democratic candidate used to be able to achieve this informal victory over her electoral opponent?
His name is Philip Raines, who was hired by Harris’ staff to impersonate Donald Trump in her last rehearsal before their televised showdown.
According to the Daily Mail, this is a… professional Donald Trump impersonator, who had performed the same role for Hillary Clinton before the 2016 debate with the same opponent. “You have to be loud, you have to be funny, you have to lie like there’s no tomorrow,” says Raines on how to successfully impersonate the former US President.
The 54-year-old New Yorker used a similar approach to what he did for Clinton when Harris’ team recruited him to reprise the role of vice president.
“In my opinion, you just want the candidate to get used to what they’re going to see, hear and experience. It is the strangest thing they have ever encountered in their political careers. And the great thing is that I had never met her. The first day I met her, I said, Madam Vice President, nice to meet you. And then 20 minutes later, I was telling her how she was destroying America,” Raines said.
How did he describe the process he follows to transform himself into “Donald Trump”? As he reports, he wears a suit and tie and always uses the same shades of makeup as Trump, which gives him a strange “glow.” “It’s very hard to get it off my face. The guy uses regular…plaster,” reports Harris’ partner. This, as he says, is the most difficult. Getting into Trump’s mindset and imitating his movements or speech is, he says, relatively easy. “It’s not even a Rubik’s cube. His thinking is not that complicated. I’d say it’s more like Jenga. You pull a brick and the whole structure collapses,” he says characteristically.
Reigns didn’t go into much detail about what they have in store with Kamala Harris. In no case, however, did they rehearse the handshake he would have with Trump. He mentioned, however, how he had trained Hillary Clinton to avoid at all costs the hug that Trump would try to take her before the start of the debate.
In fact, he uploaded a video to X of the relevant rehearsals they had done at the time.
See the related video
Not easy to avoid the unwanted Trump hug, sometimes it even takes practice…
A favorite moment from debate prep (9/24/16): pic.twitter.com/JAAHaqKFoa
— Philippe Reines (@PhilippeReines) May 19, 2017
It is worth noting that Raines, who has followed very closely the behavior and statements of Donald Trump, claims that something is happening with the former president of the USA, regarding his health.
“While he used to be very firm when he spoke, now you get the feeling that sometimes he loses his words. This is also the reason that during his speeches, he can make a very short pause and move on to another topic immediately. Something is wrong with him, it seems to me,” he said.
The next debate between the two candidates is expected in October.
See related video
Source: www.enikos.gr
