Gov. Sanders: Tuesday's debate more important for Harris than Trump

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a close ally of former President Donald Trump, argued the presidential debate Tuesday between Vice President Kamala Harris and the Republican nominee is more important for Harris than Trump, who has participated in six general election debates across three cycles.

"I think this is actually a much more important night for her because it's so rare that we hear from her, that we hear her take questions, or that we know anything that she actually stands for," Sanders told “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl on Sunday.

The ABC News presidential debate will take place on Sept. 10 at 9 p.m. ET and air on ABC and stream on ABC News Live, Disney+ and Hulu. The prime time event comes less than two months after President Joe Biden ended his reelection campaign and endorsed Harris to replace him as the Democratic Party's nominee. This will be the first time Harris and Trump debate each other -- and the first time they've met face-to-face.

Asked about the former president’s debate preparations, Sanders said, "I think every day is debate prep for Donald Trump. He'll go in game-time ready, just as he does for every interview, every rally that he does."

"This is not something that is a heavy lift for him. ... Donald Trump has a good story to tell. He shows up at this debate from a position of strength. She shows up from a position of weakness. The administration that she is totally responsible and accountable for has been an abysmal failure," Sanders said, also predicting that Harris would perform poorly in the debate.

“I don't think that she's up to the challenge in large part, not just because I don't know that she's a great debater, but she's so wrong on the issues that Americans care about, and she has a terrible track record to talk about,” Sanders said.

Karl also asked Sanders about former Rep. Liz Cheney's decision to endorse Harris this past week. Cheney, the former number three in House Republican leadership and daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, told Karl in a separate, exclusive interview on "This Week" on Sunday that she believes Trump "presents a challenge and a threat fundamentally to the republic," and said her backing for Harris in November will mark the first time she'll vote for a Democrat in her life.

Sanders, who served as Trump’s White House press secretary, brushed off the endorsement and called Cheney “a non-factor.”

“I'm not trying to be rude, but you don't get to call yourself a conservative or a Republican when you support the most radical nominee that the Democrats have ever put up," she told Karl. “What should come as a shock is that she is trying to call herself a conservative Republican, or either one of those two words, while supporting somebody who so clearly does not represent conservative principles.”

In her interview, Cheney argued that Trump's proposal to slap widespread tariffs on imported foreign goods "is fundamentally an anti-conservative policy." Asked how she squares that proposal with conservative policies, Sanders defended the former president.

“He wants to make sure that we're actually making things in America.There's nothing more conservative than empowering Americans and American companies to build things here versus building them overseas,” she said.

“In the next administration, we have to decide -- who do we want to be the world leaders?” Sanders asked. “I want it to be the United States. And there's only one person, and one president and one administration who's done that before and will do it again, and it's Donald Trump.”