Chris Matthews: The Philly debate gives Harris a chance to tell Trump directly, ‘Say it to my face’

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have agreed to debate on Sept. 10 in Philadelphia.

The nationally televised face-to-face from the National Constitution Center will be on ABC and without a studio audience.

That means it will be for the American vote sitting at home — or in sports bars around the city and the country — to decide the winner.

And quite probably the next president.

I mention sports bars for a reason. A debate is the closest American politics comes to an athletic contest. It is a test of performance but also of guts.

It’s a chance to show what you care about but also to show your personal strength. You are, after all, in the same room with your partisan rival.

Harris’ policy priorities are still unfamiliar to millions of voters. And, for all the recent enthusiasm within her ranks, she remains an historic underdog.

She is a woman of color. If Trump meets his goal — one he has clearly set for himself — she will also stand out as the candidate of the far left.

So Harris has a pair of tasks in the Sept. 10 Philadelphia debate.

The first is to build on the strength she began showing when she introduced her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota. That evening at Temple University, the vice president demonstrated what I’d call a “command authority.”

She owned that room.

When she shares the same stage with Trump, the pressure will be set much higher. When she goes head-to-head with her rival, she will be the first woman of color with a real shot at the American presidency.

Trump will try claw back every inch of that history. He will throw everything he has at her. He will add the “left-wing” label to attacks on her heritage and her gender, that she wants “open borders” and supports urban crime.

Having watched Harris perform of late, I believe she can more than hold her own against the former president.

The big question is whether Trump can pull the same shenanigans he did against Hillary Clinton.

Eight years ago, as many of us cannot forget, he walked across the stage and stood directly behind the former First Lady and secretary of state as she was taking her time to speak.

I have often wondered what Clinton was supposed to do in such moments: Should she have turned on him and ridiculed him as a rule-breaker? Or out-of-control predator?

Today, we have an answer. It comes from Kamala Harris herself.

“Say it to my face!”

It is a retort as aggressive as Trump only tries to be. It’s how you address a monster.

And people will love it, just as the crowds have already. It’s added joy to her campaign. It reminds rally audiences of how Harris, the former prosecutor, calls Trump — a convicted felon — a criminal “type” that she knows well, the kind that abuses women, the sort that cheats in every transaction.

“Say it to my face!”

It reminds me of how the author Scott Turow began his classic novel, Presumed Innocent. It’s the instruction on how a new prosecutor should always begin a murder case.

“You must always point,” an old courtroom hand said. “If you don’t have the courage to point, you can’t expect them to have the courage to convict.”

Harris has the ability to point across the debate stage at Trump and tell it to his face.

Her second debate challenge is to position herself politically.

A recent poll shows she’s correctly identified herself as a “generic” Democrat. In other words, she can’t be dismissed as a far left progressive. The reason is that she’s presented herself as a tough prosecutor, someone who will enforce the country’s laws.

Having come up from San Francisco district attorney to California attorney general, this seems like the right approach for this three-month sprint to Election Day. She is the tough prosecutor, Vice President Kamala Harris, vs. the defendant, Donald Trump.

She needs to hold to that position, especially in the Philadelphia debate next month. Why? Because if you don’t define yourself in American politics, someone else will. And you won’t like the picture.

The voters who will decide this election are looking for an alternative to Donald Trump — but not one that’s on the extreme end of the political spectrum. Right now she is seen as a normal Democrat. Leave it at that.

Being a regular Democrat covers a lot of ground. It keeps her safely from the hard left. It keeps her from being dismissed on the edges of this city and the suburbs where the undecided voters are wrestling with their votes.

If she wins, it will because a woman of color has overcome our country’s fraught history on race — and we will all the better for it.

So she should continue to be a bit tougher on the border than Biden, and lean into being the pro “cop” candidate she was considered coming up in California. That will play a large part in gaining votes at the city’s northeast edge and in the surrounding suburbs.

This September debate in Philadelphia promises to grab a huge audience. The American people on both sides will leap at the chance to see these political antagonists in the same ring together.

It will be Kamala Harris’s greatest test. It could well make her the next president of the United States.

Chris Matthews was host of MSNBC’s Hardball and before that a presidential speechwriter.