The Trump-Biden Debates Are On
The twin spectacles are set for June 27 and September 10. Will they actually happen?
Few people thought Joe Biden would debate Donald Trump in this presidential campaign. Trump refused to debate his GOP primary opponents, giving Biden the opening to reject debates with a man he insists is not worthy or fit for the office (pot, meet kettle). More importantly, Biden’s cognitive decline has been so pronounced that he seemingly stands only to lose in such a contest.
As National Review’s Dan McLaughlin joked, “We have one candidate whose doctors don’t want him walking, and one whose lawyers don’t want him talking.”
But here we are, with two debates suddenly on the schedule after Biden dropped a tough-guy video on social media challenging his challenger.
Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020. Since then, he hasn’t shown up for a debate.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 15, 2024
Now he’s acting like he wants to debate me again.
Well, make my day, pal. pic.twitter.com/AkPmvs2q4u
Many folks immediately noticed that it took five jump cuts for Biden to make it through a 14-second clip. His team made it artsy for effect, but the purpose was clearly to help him seem lucid, which can happen only for a few seconds at a time.
“I myself would never recommend going on stage with Donald Trump,” said Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi. Her point was clearly to deny dignifying Trump with the stage, but surely she and every other Democrat fear that Biden’s simply not up to it.
According to The Hill, “The two campaigns in setting up the two debates spurned the Commission on Presidential Debates, which has facilitated the debates between presidential candidates since 1988.”
Still, Team Biden made sure to rig the debates in his favor. The first one on June 27 will happen on CNN with two pro-Biden moderators to gang up on Trump and no live audience for the former president to use for energy. The second will wait until September 10 on ABC. Neither will likely feature Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Neither debate will do much to enlighten anyone about policy either.
“If you were truly going to do a fairly moderated presidential debate,” opined Clay Travis, “you’d have MSNBC and Fox News each pick a single debate moderator and every question from Fox News would go to Biden and every question from MSNBC would go to Trump.”
Biden also telegraphed one of his punches: “I hear you’re free on Wednesdays.” That clearly refers to the only weekday on which Trump is not stuck in a courtroom. Biden will undoubtedly focus on Trump’s four indictments on 91 charges, as if there is no presumption of innocence or as if the whole charade is not politically motivated lawfare. Trump will rightly blast it as the latter — waged by Biden’s Democrat surrogates in New York and DC — but how many folks watching CNN won’t believe that?
Trump would do well to also bring up Hunter Biden’s trials. The one for gun charges begins June 3, and the one for tax evasion begins June 20.
June is awfully early in the campaign to have debates. In fact, neither man will officially be his party’s nominee. Therein lies what I think is part of the calculation: If Biden performs poorly or enough Democrats can find another reason, that early date gives them time to nominate someone else at the Democratic National Convention in August.
Trump sees it, too. “He might as well get it over with, probably should do it early so that he can, you know, because he’s not going to get any better,” Trump said. “Every day is a down factor for him.” Asked if he thinks Democrats will dump Biden as the nominee, Trump said: “I do, I do. I don’t think they’ll have a choice.”
There’s still a lot of skepticism that these debates will happen. Neither Trump nor Biden shies away from smashing “norms” when they find it beneficial to do so. One thing is abundantly clear: It’s not normal or good for the country to have a nearly incapacitated 81-year-old man trying to cling to the presidency until he’s 86.
