Meet the man who pretends to be Trump for Kamala Harris’s debate prep

A man who described Donald Trump as a “malevolent George Costanza” and a “malfunctioning appliance” is helping Kamala Harris prepare for her first debate with the former president.

Philippe Reines, a former deputy assistant secretary of state and senior advisor to Hillary Clinton, is the stand-in for Trump in mock debates ahead of the real thing on September 10.

This is the second time he has played the role after acting as Trump in Clinton’s own preparations in September 2016, and he takes the job seriously.

“I dressed up like him, but I didn’t put on an orange face or a wig,” Reines told The Michael Smerconish Program on Sirius.

“Although one day I put self-tanner on one half of my face and no one noticed, so I didn’t bother again.”

Reines had worked on Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign before joining Clinton for her first failed run for the White House in 2008. At the time, Vogue magazine described him as Clinton’s «Michael Clayton-esque image man and fixer”.

In her memoir Hard Choices, Clinton described Reines as “passionate, loyal, and shrewd” and said she could “always trust him to speak his mind.”

He worked for Clinton for 17 years. He was a senior advisor when she became secretary of state and was at the center of her second campaign for the presidency.

It was then that he became her Trump whisperer.

Around three weeks before Clinton’s first debate with Trump, in September 2016, Reines joined a team of around 10 advisors in a ballroom at the Doral Arrowwood Hotel in Westchester.

I didn’t stand there all the time yelling ‘crooked Hillary!’ or ‘email email email!’ That’s not helpful

Among them were a handful of researchers and a smattering of consultants. Ron Klain, who would later become Joe Biden’s chief of