Debate: Time to shine ... or slip

Candidates hope to overcome weaknesses before expected TV audience of 75 million

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump needs to prove to voters that he has the policy depth and gravitas to serve as commander in chief. Hillary Clinton needs a moment to connect with Americans who question whether she can be trusted.

In an election year that has upended political convention, the candidates’ best opportunity to conquer their weaknesses will come in the most traditional of campaign forums: Monday’s 90-minute, primetime debate.

Both campaigns expect a record-setting television audience for the high-stakes showdown, which could help tip the balance in a tight White House race.

The visuals alone will be striking as the candidates step behind their podiums at Hofstra University in suburban New York. Clinton will be the first woman to take the stage in a presidential general election debate. Trump has spent years on Americans’ television screens as a reality show host, but it can still be jarring to see him at politics’ upper echelons.

On Sunday, the candidates were meeting separately with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, giving each candidate fresh bragging rights about their knowledge of foreign policy and readiness to lead the nation on the eve of their first presidential debate.

Trump and Netanyahu discussed “at length” Israel’s use of a fence to help secure its borders, an example Trump frequently cites when he’s talking about the wall he wants to build between the U.S. and Mexico.

“Trump recognized that Israel and its citizens have suffered far too long on the front lines of Islamic terrorism,” the campaign said in a statement. “He agreed with Prime Minister Netanyahu that the Israeli people want a just and lasting peace with their neighbors, but that peace will only come when the Palestinians renounce hatred and violence and accept Israel as a Jewish State.”

Clinton was expected to meet with the prime minister later in the day, also in New York.

Six weeks from Election Day, and with early voting already underway, the opening debate is one of the few opportunities left for the candidates to motivate supporters and sway a narrow band of undecided voters. According to a new Associated Press-Gfk poll, more than 85 percent of likely voters backing Clinton or Trump say their minds are completely made up. About 13 percent said they were undecided.

The candidates’ preparation has been a microcosm of their sharply different approaches to politics and presumably, the presidency.

Meanwhile, the candidates deployed their top supporters to the Sunday shows to take early jabs at their opponents and lower expectations for a showdown expected to draw 75 million viewers — many of them disenchanted with both candidates, the leastpopular presidential hopefuls in history.

Facts and who will determine them during the 90-minute debate seemed to be a top concern of the campaigns’ strategists, given Trump’s habit of saying things that are untrue and the public’s general distrust of Clinton.

Robby Mook, Clinton’s campaign manager, told ABC’s “This Week” that he is concerned Trump will continue his habit of sometimes saying things that aren’t true and still get a passing grade. He called on moderator Lester Holt to correct any inaccuracies made by the candidates. But Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, said it’s not the job of debate moderators to fact check.

Trump’s vice presidential running mate, Mike Pence, said that Gennifer Flowers will not attend the debate. Trump had tweeted that if frequent Trump critic Mark Cuban attended the showdown, he’d put Flowers, allegedly the former mistress of Clinton’s husband, Bill, in the audience too. Conway said that Flowers had a right to be there if “somebody else gives her a ticket.” But Pence drew a harder line.

“Gennifer Flowers will not be attending the debate tomorrow night,” Pence said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Clinton has taken full days away from campaign travel to pore over briefing books, practicing to pounce if Trump makes false statements and steeling herself for the possibility that he levels deeply personal attacks. She’s been preparing for the debate at her home in Westchester County, New York, and a nearby hotel, where she was spotted with aides Saturday afternoon.

Longtime Clinton aide Philippe Reines is playing Trump in mock debates, according to a person familiar with the preparations who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and insisted on anonymity. Reines is a combative political operative who is deeply loyal to Clinton.

Former President Bill Clinton has sat in on some sessions, offering advice from his own White House debates.

Trump has eschewed traditional debate preparations, but has held midflight policy discussions with a rotating cast of advisers. He’s also spent numerous Sundays batting around ideas with aides.

The Republican businessman’s loose approach is potentially risky given that he is new to many policy issues expected to come up during the debate. But advisers contend he will compensate by being quick on his feet and point to his experience at performing under pressure.

“Imagine the practice and the training of 13 years of reality television on ‘The Apprentice’ and then imagine Hillary’s experience reading hundreds of papers,” said Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker and a Trump adviser who has been talking through policy with the candidate in recent days.

Clinton aides fear Trump will indeed be judged more for his performance than his grasp of the numerous challenges that pass across a president’s desk. They’ve been flummoxed by Trump’s ability to sail through the campaign without fleshing out many policy positions and glossing over past statements that he no longer views as politically palatable.

On Friday, the Clinton campaign released 19 pages of what they called Trump’s “seven deadly lies,” including his false assertion that he opposed the Iraq war from the start.

“Even if he meets some kind of lowered bar of being semi-coherent and not having any outbursts, it’s hard to imagine he’ll avoid his own propensity for lying,” said Brian Fallon, Clinton’s campaign spokesman.

Asked whether Clinton herself planned to call Trump out in the debate if he tries to lie about his past statements, Fallon said, “I don’t think she would let anything like that pass.”

People familiar with Clinton’s preparations say she has been working through answers to questions that hit at her lack of trustworthiness in the eyes of many Americans, a problem that has dogged her throughout the campaign.