Kamala Harris’ Donald Trump Stand-in Reveals His Acting Approach

Long time Democratic Party consultant Philippe Reines has revealed his strategy for his latest assignment: impersonating Donald Trump in Kamala Harris’ practice debates.
Speaking to MSNBC’s Chris Hayes on Wednesday evening, Reines described putting bronze makeup on his face so thick that he struggled to wash it off.
“I mean it’s, it’s so caked on. The guy uses, you know, like plaster of Paris.”
He posted a picture of himself in Trump-style makeup on X.
Reines’ role in the mock debates was to help Harris prepare for the real thing by embodying Trump’s combative and unconventional style, a role he also played for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
“I had never met her [Harris],” he said. “The first day that I met her, I said, ‘Madam Vice President, it’s nice to meet you.’ And then 20 minutes later, I was telling her how she was ruining America.”
Reines said debating Trump is not like a typical debate, which he compared to a professional job interview where candidates present their best selves.
“The situation we haven’t been in is when the other candidate for the job is six feet to your left, and they’ve got a chainsaw, and the only way that they can win is by, you know, blooding you up.”
But to Reines, Trump’s style is easy to understand and provoke: “He’s not a Rubik’s Cube. He’s not hard to figure out. He’s Jenga. You know, you just push one thing, and he falls apart.”
In August, Harris’ campaign addressed speculation that it was using AI to simulate Donald Trump in practice debates, the campaign denied doing so, saying it used conventional impersonators like Reines.
Reflecting on Harris’ debate performance, Reines praised her for handling Trump’s provocations while simultaneously provoking him and making her case to the American public.
As part of his preparation for impersonating the former president, watching hours of his speeches and public appearances, Reines said he believed Trump’s cognitive abilities to have deteriorated over the years, noting that his speech patterns have become increasingly erratic.
While Trump has always been known for digressing and jumping between topics, Reines believed that something more concerning is happening now.
“He’s really decompensating,” Reines said. “His language has always been choppy. He’s always digressed. There’s something else going on there.”
He also pointed out that Trump’s inability to stay on topic is becoming more pronounced: “When he loses track of his thoughts, he just goes to another thought quickly, so it doesn’t sound like anything. It just sounds like he’s jumping around. That’s not what he’s doing.”
This shift in Trump’s behavior, according to Reines, suggests that something is not right.
“There’s something… very narrowly in terms of watching everything he has said and done over the last few months and reading every word, there’s something not right up there,” he said.
Newsweek has contacted the campaigns of Harris and Trump for comment.