Hillary Clinton says Kamala Harris should 'bait' Trump during their upcoming debate: 'He can be rattled'

• Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will meet for their first debate on Tuesday.
• Hillary Clinton, who debated Trump in 2016, said Harris should lean into her prosecutor experience.
• Clinton argued that Trump could be "rattled," pointing to their heated debate in 2016.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has some advice for Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of the Democratic presidential nominee's upcoming debate with former President Donald Trump.

Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, jousted with Trump during three high-stakes debates that year. She recently told The New York Times that Harris should use her background as a prosecutor to make a case against Trump.

"She just should not be baited. She should bait him," Clinton told the newspaper.

Clinton argued that during a key moment in the final 2016 presidential debate, her needling of Trump on foreign affairs — where she called him a "puppet" of Russian President Vladimir Putin — threw him off balance.

"He can be rattled," Clinton told the Times. "He doesn't know how to respond to substantive, direct attacks."

"And I think that from her prosecutorial background, I think that's what she will be equipped to do," Clinton added.

Clinton, who in 2016 won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College to Trump after coming up short in pivotal battlegrounds like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, said the debate would be a prime opportunity for Harris to offer a contrast with the former president as they appeal to wavering voters.

"There still is enough potential movement in key states where people can be persuaded that they don't want to sign on for another four years of him," Clinton said.

Trump in both 2016 and 2020 relentlessly sought to control the tone of his debates with Clinton and now-President Joe Biden, respectively.

In the first televised debate of the 2020 election, Trump frequently spoke over Biden, so much so that Biden told Trump to "shut up" after several interruptions.

Biden's onetime 2024 reelection bid was eventually derailed in large part by a poor debate performance against Trump in June. The next month, Biden stepped aside as the presumptive Democratic nominee and endorsed Harris as his successor, paving the way for her ascension as the party's new standard-bearer.

Harris and Trump, who are locked in a highly competitive race, will face off on Tuesday at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.