Former Democratic Representative Tulsi Gabbard, who supported the campaign of former Republican President Donald Trump, advises the Republican candidate to focus on Vice President Kamala Harris’s policy choices in the upcoming debate.

Harris “has already shown that she is trying to distance herself from her record and her positions,” Gabbard said Sunday in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Gabbard is part of a small group of Trump advisers helping the former president prepare for the debate scheduled for September 10 on ABC.

Trump’s campaign insists the candidate does not participate in traditional role-playing, but Gabbard is uniquely suited to help Trump understand what it would be like to debate Harris because of her own experiences during the 2020 Democratic primaries.

“What I pointed out during this debate phase of the 2020 campaign was their hypocrisy,” Gabbard said.

In July 2019, Gabbard launched a notable attack on Harris during a Democratic primary debate, pointing out that Harris had secured prison time for marijuana law violations as a prosecutor and accusing Harris of not doing enough to abolish cash bail.

At that time, criminal justice reform was a very popular issue among Democratic voters in the primaries.

Five years later, Republicans are hoping Trump can repeat Gabbard’s success in unsettling Harris, albeit on very different issues.

“Kamala Harris is trying to hide from voters,” Gabbard said Sunday. “She says her position is one thing, but her actions and her record show the exact opposite.”

Compared to Harris’ platform in the 2019 Democratic primaries, her policy proposals for the 2024 general election are more center than left, particularly on issues such as fracking and immigration.

For Trump, however, following Gabbard’s advice could bring both risks and potential benefits.

The former congresswoman from Hawaii shares Trump’s conspiracy-theoretical view of the Biden administration’s exercise of power and regularly accuses the White House of targeting “political opponents,” including herself.

If Trump builds on such conspiratorial themes during the debates, he could risk drawing attention to his numerous legal battles or even alienating undecided voters.

Still, surrogates like Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — the former Democrat turned third-party presidential candidate who recently dropped out of the race and endorsed Trump — allow the Republican to portray his campaign as a haven for independents and Democratic defectors.

The Trump campaign recently added both Gabbard and RFK Jr. to its official transition team, and both are reportedly in talks for possible Cabinet posts if Trump wins the White House.