A longtime Hillary Clinton confidant is portraying Donald Trump in her practice debate sessions, two people familiar with the debate preparations tell CNN.
Philippe Reines, known for his combative style and fierce loyalty to Clinton, will spend the weekend helping Clinton prepare for her first face-off with Trump on Monday night. He has been working closely with her debate planning team for more than a month, the sources said.
The role of Trump has been one of the most closely-guarded secrets surrounding Clinton’s rigorous debate preparations. Most aides at the campaign headquarters in Brooklyn, while aware that Reines speaks frequently to Clinton, did not know he was playing the role of Trump.
The New York Times first reported Reines’ involvement in debate preparations.
Reines was a press secretary for Clinton during her Senate tenure and one of her closest advisers as secretary of state. In Clinton’s memoir about her time leading the State Department, “Hard Choices,” she describes him as “passionate, loyal, and shrewd.”
“He usually knows what Washington’s movers and shakers are thinking even before they do,” Clinton wrote in her 2014 memoir.
A spokesman for the Clinton campaign declined to comment Saturday.
Both candidates have been viewing hours of footage of their opponent to assess their debate style — and their campaigns have strained to hang high expectations on their rivals in an effort to minimize the impact of their own flaws.
CNN previously reported that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is playing Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine in debate preps with Mike Pence. Meanwhile, lawyer and agent Bob Barnett is playing Pence in debate prep sessions with Kaine.