You probably don’t know John Facenda, but you’ve certainly heard his voice: For decades, he was the gravelly-throated narrator of NFL Films. Dubbed “The Voice of God” for his deep, booming delivery, he died in 1984 at age 71 and never really received the credit he deserved for mythologizing pro football.
It wasn’t intentional. The NFL wasn’t trying to turn its slow-motion footage into a marketing campaign. It just kind of happened that way: In 1965, Facenda was drinking at a local tavern, chatting over the slow-mo NFL clips on the TV. Ed Sabol, the founder of NFL Films, overheard him and asked if he could talk like that with a script. The rest is history.
HBO Sports coopted the formula with its boxing telecasts in the 1980s and 1990s, airing short documentary films about each fighter to hype up the bout. It elevated the stakes, transforming a clash between boxers into a complex, irresistible morality play.
That’s how it goes in television: When someone figures out a successful formula, everyone else copies it. TV either takes a good idea and beats it into the ground or it takes a bad idea and beats it into the ground. It’s a monkey-see-monkey-do, keeping-up-with-the-Joneses mentality.
Pre-Facenda, nobody understood the transformative power of gravel-voiced narration — plus slow-motion footage — along with classical music underscoring the mayhem. But it works. NFL Films has won 112 Sports Emmys and turned mere mortals into larger-than-life legends.
This is the mood I’m trying to evoke for your Donald Trump vs. Kamala Harris “Tale of the Tape” preview:
In a critical clash to determine the future of the Free World, two deadly gladiators will collide in the City of Brotherly Love — but there’s no love lost between these two titans. Donald Trump is the old lion, ready to reclaim his rightful place in his kingdom. Kamala Harris is the reigning VP, driven by an insatiable quest to conquer the old lion and claim his kingdom for herself. They’ll be getting it on… 'cuz they don’t get along! Since they hate, they've gotta debate! This Tuesday at 9 p.m. — be there!
(Okay, it’s not poetic like The Thrilla in Manilla, but what am I supposed to do with a debate in Philadelphia? Getting Silly in Philly doesn’t really work, either.)
Here’s the breakdown:
AGE: Donald Trump is 78 years old. Kamala Harris turns 60 next month.
SPEAKING STYLE: The Trump we see at campaign rallies isn’t the same Trump who appears at presidential debates. He’s at his best when he’s loose, having fun, and assuming the role of the rational outsider who’s mad as hell and had it with the greed and incompetence of professional politicians. Alas, all too often at debates, Trump gets weirdly nasal, inhaling through his nose so loudly that it overwhelms his microphone. Recently, he’s been veering from soft-spoken, subdued, and — dare I say it: low energy — too scattershot with his grievances. When he loses focus, he gets in trouble.
Harris is an excellent political actress: She can recite her lines with meaning and clarity. When she’s on a roll, she’s far smoother and more naturally emotive than Joe Biden ever was. When it comes to parroting a prewritten speech, Harris is better than Trump.
Her weakness is that she just can’t improvise. When she knows her lines and can anticipate where the conversation is flowing, Harris has gotten good at coupling her words with her mannerisms and expressions. Unlike Biden, who was eyeballing ghosts during the 2024 debate with his mouth agape, Harris will be mindful of her optics.
STRENGTHS: Trump’s core strength is that he knows how to entertain an audience and build emotional connections. His language is often sloppy, but the emotions behind his language are not. When he has a playful glint in his eye and hits the right balance between confidence and aggression, Trump is one of the most captivating politicians of our lifetime. He draws your eyeballs. There’s an authenticity to him.
Harris is like a fighter who practices in front of a mirror shadowboxing all day: When she plants her feet and throws the combos she’s mastered, she looks like a world-beater. You can see why the Democratic base rushed to her side. But the trouble with shadowboxing is that — in the real world — your opponent isn’t as predictable as your shadow. They’ll move around, feign a shot, and try to catch you off-balance. The same people who are masterful shadowboxers will fall apart in actual sparring.
WEAKNESS: Trump is, was, and will forever be polarizing to large portions of the country. The same qualities that MAGA finds so attractive are perceived as dangerous and destructive to his detractors. Because he relies on emotive language, his individual statements can be parsed, their inaccuracies dismantled. Sometimes, 10% less Trump goes a long way.
For Harris, it’s not just that she’s fake and disingenuous: All politicians are at least a little fake and disingenuous. It’s that her B.S. is too transparent. She’s not as good at it as she thinks. For whatever reason, Harris has convinced herself that she’s such a brilliant orator that she can talk anyone into anything — all she needs is a chance to speak! Her faith in her bulls**t is off the charts.
Unfortunately, she’s not smart enough to realize how dumb she sounds when she word-salads her way through answers. It doesn’t just come across as phony; it comes across as condescendingly phony — like Kamala Harris doesn’t even respect you enough to tell you a good lie.
STRATEGY: Trump wants to hit his happy medium: Intense, fiery, and engaged, but not so intense that he rampages all over the set like he’s Godzilla trampling Japanese villagers. It’s less important for Trump to win each give-and-take than to win the “take home” argument — the key ideas that resonate in the minds of voters days later. As long as voters perceive Trump as a vehicle for righting the economy, putting America back on the right track, and protecting our national interests, he’ll win in November.
Hopefully, Trump learned an important lesson in his last debate with Biden: When your opponent is self-destructing, shut the hell up and stay out of his way. When their ineptitude is the story, don’t do something stupid to change the headline.
Harris wants to stick like glue to her talking points. As long as she can recite her lines and “shadowbox” for the cameras, she’ll be the more impressive candidate. She just can’t let Trump goad her into extemporaneous expression.
If Trump can force her off her talking points, he can deep-six her campaign before October. When her mask slips off, she’s fake and unlikeable; it’s her fatal flaw.
WILDCARD: ABC News anchors David Muir and Linsey David will moderate the debate. Can they be fair and impartial? Will they call Harris on the carpet when she word-salads her way through her nonanswers? Or will they reveal themselves to be the unofficial tag team partners of the Harris campaign, transforming a presidential debate into a three-on-one affair?
The muted microphone kerfuffle could cut both ways. On one hand, muting Trump’s mic and forcing him to shut up when Biden was melting down was a godsend. But on the other, Harris is so naturally unlikeable that it’s almost a shame to reduce her mic time. The more the public hears and sees her in an uncontrolled setting, the less they like her. It’s not at all a given that muting the microphones is a net positive for Trump.
PREDICTION: Harris will “win” the debate the next day. But Trump will win the debate the following week.
The media will celebrate everything Harris does right — and yes, there will certainly be questions, answers, and back-and-forth moments where Harris does well. The media will promote these clips and use them to justify her “amazing” victory.
But it’s also likely that there will also be multiple moments where Harris comes across as a word-salad-spewing dolt who’s unlikeable, nasty, and inauthentic. The public will notice this, too. These views will eventually take hold and change the Harris narrative, but it’ll be a delayed reaction. It’ll take a little while for the momentum to build, but once it starts moving, it’ll be next to impossible to slow down. Her brand will permanently change.
So get ready for a week of news headlines about Harris winning the debate — Trump is old and got trounced by a girl! — the next generation of Democratic leadership overperforms, elating women and minorities!
And then, one week later, the headlines will change to, “Why is Kamala Harris going down in the polls? After all, didn’t she win?”