Kudos to Team Biden for successfully landing the first punch in the presidential free-for-all (aka, the campaign). By challenging Donald Trump to a debate and dictating the terms of play, President Biden left his opponent with two impossible choices: decline the opportunity to face off against Biden on national TV and be declared a coward, or agree to the meet, even knowing the playing field is tilted in favor of the incumbent.
Will it matter that the Trump campaign got snookered? Almost certainly not. For the same reason that the absurd 14-second video in which the president dares Trump to “make my day” required five “cuts” to get it right, 81-year-old Biden is still likely to lose round 2.
Not that it’s a slam-dunk for former President Trump. Biden is correct; Trump did lose the 2020 debates. He had apparently been coached to be combative, in hopes that Biden would overreact and reveal his “angry old man” persona. The tactic backfired spectacularly; Trump came across as unlikeable. If Biden or the moderators goad the former president on his January 6 behavior or reference his many legal troubles, Trump could again get angry. That disastrous encounter cost him the election; it could happen again.
Expectations will be incredibly low for his opponent, as they were for this year’s State of the Union address. After that speech in February, critics described Biden as being hopped up on stimulants; the president spoke in an unnatural, rapid-fire manner that nonetheless got the job done. Worried that Biden will get a similar boost to endure a two-hour debate, some on the right — including Trump — have called for drug testing before the debates; that won’t happen.
Biden’s handlers are doing everything possible to give the president an edge. The first showdown will be on June 27, moderated by CNN anchors Dana Bash and Jake Tapper, both known Trump antagonists. Tapper famously and energetically pushed the Russiagate hoax and celebrated Biden’s 2020 election. Bash, meanwhile, has slammed the former president’s campaign rhetoric as “outright lies” and has criticized him on a host of issues.
The Biden camp has also insisted there be no audience, fearful that Trump would feed off the enthusiasm of his supporters.
Trump’s campaign has to guard against dirty tricks. Remember that Democrat Party apparatchik Donna Brazile fed candidate Hillary Clinton the questions ahead of a CNN-moderated debate with Donald Trump in 2016. That must not happen again.
Biden’s decision to debate Trump reflects desperation. Polls show Biden trailing Trump in key swing states, while the former president’s huge rally in azure-blue New Jersey was astonishing. Rabbits are being pulled out of hats — talk of an executive order to control the border, supposedly labor-friendly tariffs on China, hints that the Democratic convention might go virtual— it appears everything is on the table. Time is running out to turn around the public’s dismal view of his presidency. Hence, Biden will go for broke and debate his rival. He has no choice.
Think about it. Democrats have thrown everything under the sun at Trump; they could not have imagined that he would survive the Hollywood-directed J6 show trial in Congress, two impeachments, 91 felony counts, a trial that pens him up like an angry bull, and incessant sliming by Joe Biden and his handmaidens in the media, allowing a campaign riddled with lies and inaccuracies to run largely unchecked.
The Hill’s Alexander Bolton wrote in January that Democratic lawmakers, while publicly claiming Biden could successfully run on his record, were privately conceding “they are counting on Trump collapsing under the weight of more than 90 felony charges and his penchant for conflict and outlandish claims turning off women and swing voters.”
That did not happen. If anything, Trump’s position has been strengthened by the perception that the Biden White House has engineered a slew of unfair and politically motivated indictments against the billionaire.
Some Democrats did not want Biden to debate Donald Trump. Asked about a possible face-to-face earlier this year, Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin said, “I would think twice about it,” noting that in debates with Hillary Clinton, Trump did “outrageous things” and that it would be “just an opportunity for him to display his extremism.” David Frum, writing in The Atlantic, argued “The networks want their show, but to give the challenger equal status on a TV stage would be a dire normalization of his attempted coup.”
The reality is that Democrats are afraid that in a televised debate, Biden’s cognitive impairment would be visible to all Americans, and not just those who watch Fox News or other right-leaning outlets. That the media has created an information chasm in our country is undeniable. In a group that included both Democrats and Republicans recently, I was chuckling about Kamala Harris’s incomprehensible “word salads.” Biden backers at the table were genuinely confused; avid readers of the New York Times and habitués of MSNBC, they had never seen Harris wander off into the ether. They had no idea what I was talking about.
Those watching GOP-favoring outlets have witnessed Joe Biden’s deterioration over the last several years, while many Americans have not. If Biden debates Trump, they may see why an overwhelming majority of the country thinks he is too old to run for a second term.
The Trump campaign is reportedly much more professional and determined this time round; how they prepare their candidate for this debate will be revealing. He needs to be controlled, pleasant, and factual, while lambasting the multiple failures of the Biden presidency. He also needs to deliver an optimistic and positive view of what he can do with a second term.
The stakes are immeasurable, for Trump and the country. Let us hope he gets it right.
Liz Peek is a former partner of major bracket Wall Street firm Wertheim & Company.