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For Biden and Trump, a Debate Rematch With Even Greater Risks and Rewards (NYT)
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Date: June 23rd, 2024 9:58 AM Author: Mainlining the $ecret truth of the univer$e (COORDINATES: 82.508453, -62.410526.) https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/23/us/politics/biden-trump-debate-stakes.html
The debate between President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump this week will be the highest-stakes moment of their rematch, plunging two presidents into an extraordinarily early confrontation before a divided and angry nation.
For Mr. Biden, the debate in Atlanta offers an opportunity to remind voters of the chaos of his predecessor’s leadership, his criminal convictions and to warn of an even darker future should he win a second term. For Mr. Trump, it’s a chance to make his case that America has grown more expensive, weaker and more dangerous under his successor.
But the face-off on Thursday also poses significant risks for the two men — both of them the oldest candidates ever to compete in a presidential race — who have been locked in a contentious rivalry defined by mutual hatred for more than four years. That animosity heightens the evening’s unpredictability. A notable misstep — a physical stumble, a mental lapse or a barrage of too-personal insults — could reverberate for months, because of the unusually long period until they meet again for the second debate in September.
“This is a big inflection point,” said Karl Rove, a leading Republican strategist who guided George W. Bush’s two successful presidential runs. “Can Biden be consistently cogent, causing people to say, ‘Well, maybe the old guy is up to it?’ And is Trump going to be sufficiently restrained that people say, ‘You know what, it really is about us, not about him?’”
This presidential debate will be the earliest in the nation’s history and notably different from those familiar to many Americans. Hosted by CNN rather than a nonpartisan commission, it will be simulcast on more than five networks, without a live audience and without opening statements. Each candidate will have two minutes to answer questions, followed by one-minute rebuttals and responses to the rebuttals, and their microphones will be muted when it is not their turn to speak.
The two men are taking strikingly different approaches to their preparation. Mr. Biden hunkered down with his aides at Camp David for formal debate sessions, with the part of Mr. Trump expected to be played by Bob Bauer, the president’s personal attorney. The former president is taking a looser approach but is participating in more “policy sessions” than he held in 2020.
Mr. Trump’s advisers hope the former president keeps his attention on the issues that are widely seen as Mr. Biden’s biggest vulnerabilities — inflation and immigration — and is not baited into exchanges over his false claims about a stolen 2020 election and a justice system he claims is rigged against him.
Mr. Biden’s team sees an opportunity to focus Democratic and independent voters, and even some moderate Republicans, on how much more radical a second Trump administration might be than the first. Yet they are also preparing for Mr. Trump to deliver a more disciplined performance than in the first debate of 2020, when he had a chaotic showing that was likened to a “dumpster fire.”
“This debate is an opportunity to show the American people what those of us who watch Donald Trump all day, professionally, are seeing, which is that he is more unhinged, he is more dangerous, he is out for revenge, and anything that raises those stakes directly with the American people is a net positive for us,” said Rob Flaherty, a deputy campaign manager for Mr. Biden.
For his part, Mr. Trump is preparing to answer questions about threats to American democracy and his promise to pardon rioters involved in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. He has told associates he will emphasize that he will tackle the Jan. 6 pardons on a “case by case” basis and will distinguish between those who committed violence and those who didn’t.
And after spending months questioning Mr. Biden’s ability to endure a 90-minute debate at all, let alone perform at a peak level, Mr. Trump has reversed himself to attempt to reset higher expectations.
“I don’t want to underestimate him,” Mr. Trump said on a recent podcast. He referred back a dozen years to Mr. Biden’s 2012 vice-presidential debate to praise the president’s skills. “He beat Paul Ryan, so I’m not underestimating him,” Mr. Trump said.
Steven Cheung, Mr. Trump’s communications director, blamed the media for setting low expectations for the president.
“The true benchmark for Thursday’s debate should be whether or not Joe Biden can defend his disastrous record on inflation and the out-of-control border invasion versus President Trump’s unquestioned first-term record of success,” Mr. Cheung said.
The event will be the first time American voters see Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump in a direct exchange since October 2020, when they met for the final debate of their last race. It is also the first time they have been in the same room since then.
Much has changed in the interim. The country has lived through a pandemic, an uncertain economy, a siege on the nation’s Capitol, the fall of federal abortion rights and become enmeshed in two bloody global conflicts. Mr. Trump is now a felon, convicted of 34 counts by a New York jury. And Mr. Biden has become an unpopular president, facing deep opposition not only from Republicans but among his party’s base.
And yet polls have shown little movement between Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden. Both men are widely disliked by broad swaths of the nation and locked in a tight race, though Mr. Trump had been largely narrowly ahead in national polls earlier this year.
Representative James Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat who is a close ally of Mr. Biden’s, described the debate as a potentially “crucial moment” for the president’s trajectory in the race.
“He is beginning to move the needle,” Mr. Clyburn said, pointing to recent national polls showing a slight uptick for the president. “This debate could very well be important as to whether or not we continue that momentum or whether or not it runs into a snag.”
Almost no one — including some of Mr. Biden’s top strategists — expects the debate to immediately upend a race between two extremely well-defined candidates. Biden aides view the debate as the starting bell for the general election, an event that will provide a high-profile opportunity to define the terrain of the contest. They sought successfully to move the debate months earlier to help prod the public to pay closer attention.
“This is going to be a long, close race,” said Molly Murphy, a pollster for the Biden campaign. “Message discipline, persistence and being in front of voters at all times is ultimately going to be what matters.”
Both candidates are, in their own ways, incumbents. Yet, the debate reverses their standing from 2020. Four years ago, it was Mr. Trump who was forced to defend his record in the midst of a raging pandemic. Now, it is Mr. Biden who will face attacks over his stewardship of an economy that, while strong by some measures, has been defined for many voters by high prices and a tight housing market.
Mr. Trump is particularly focused on a trifecta of developments he believes portrays his administration in a more favorable light — higher inflation, American entanglement in two new foreign wars and a surge in border crossings since he left office. Mr. Trump regularly blames Mr. Biden’s border policies for domestic crimes.
Representative Juan Ciscomani, an Arizona Republican running for re-election in one of the nation’s most competitive districts, says that such a focused contrast could favor Mr. Trump. Voters in his district in the Tucson area, he said, can easily compare what their life was like over those two four-year periods.
“You can tune out the news, but you can’t tune out not being able to afford groceries,” Mr. Ciscomani said. “From the border to inflation, people feel like they’re worse off today than they were three, four years ago.”
Aides to Mr. Biden say the president plans to highlight some of the more divisive proposals embraced by the former president and those close to him, including the possibility of deporting millions of undocumented immigrants and imposing a new 10 percent tax on imports, to paint a bleak picture of what could happen should Mr. Trump win re-election.
As Democrats have done for months, Mr. Biden plans to cast Mr. Trump as a threat to what they see as fundamental American freedoms, such as abortion and voting rights. They plan to pair those attacks with an economic argument that Mr. Trump would choose big businesses and billionaires over helping average Americans. In recent days, Mr. Biden has signaled a willingness to tie his economic argument to Mr. Trump’s criminal record, casting the race in one ad as a choice “between a convicted criminal who’s only out for himself and a president who’s fighting for your family.”
Mr. Biden also wants to blame Mr. Trump for the fall of Roe v. Wade, which the former president helped usher in with his Supreme Court appointments. Four years ago, Mr. Biden warned voters that Roe was on the ballot — a charge that Mr. Trump waved off in their first debate, saying: “Why is it on the ballot? It’s not on the ballot.”
Mr. Trump is unlikely to dodge the issue as easily this year, after nearly two years of a steady drumbeat not just of abortion bans but of conservative Christian efforts to restrict in vitro fertilization and other broadly popular procedures. Mr. Trump has consulted with Kellyanne Conway, his former aide who spent decades polling on the issue, and is likely to repeat the position he has embraced recently: Abortion should be left up to the states to decide.
Democrats have signaled that Mr. Biden will push back by arguing that Mr. Trump would go further if he regains the White House, by imposing sweeping new federal restrictions on abortion access.
Gail Gitcho, a Republican strategist, argued that rhetorical clashes onstage could matter less than usual given voters’ experiences living under both the Biden and Trump administrations.
“What voters are considering is how was my life under President Trump and how is my life under President Biden,” she said. “They are either choosing between presidencies or personalities — and they’re more likely to choose between presidencies.” |
Date: June 23rd, 2024 9:58 AM Author: Mainlining the $ecret truth of the univer$e (COORDINATES: 82.508453, -62.410526.) Anonymous New Jersey 4m ago I think Biden is preparing for a debate, which involves a pointed yet civilized conversation about important issues. Think debate clubs, debate teams, many debates prior to 2016. I suspect Trump is seeking an event that cannot be summed up with one word like debate. It will contains elements of a carnival, a reality television show, a rally, and a soap opera. It may contain more unpleasant and more dangerous overtones as well. I think everyone’s mind is, or should be, clear about the choice, and the stakes.
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Date: June 23rd, 2024 9:59 AM Author: Mainlining the $ecret truth of the univer$e (COORDINATES: 82.508453, -62.410526.) avrds montana 54m ago This really is a make or break event for both candidates. But Biden has the most to lose.
Trump can bloviate and interrupt loudly, even with his microphone off, and voters will just take it as Trump being Trump.
But Biden has a much higher bar. He cannot afford to wander off in his responses with a shrug and a "well, anyway ... " and hope to get away with it.
He has to be at the top of his game for a full 90 minutes. And hold his own against a realty TV star who has made his brand in part by being threatening and saying outrageous things .
I was pleasantly surprised by Biden's performance at the State of the Union, but that was scripted. Now the test is whether or not the candidate we will see on stage is capable of leading the nation, 24/7, for another four years.
The stakes could not be higher.
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Date: June 23rd, 2024 9:59 AM Author: Mainlining the $ecret truth of the univer$e (COORDINATES: 82.508453, -62.410526.) Freda Burlington 54m ago I think this is the first time in my (voting) life that I have absolutely no interest in watching any presidential debate/s, even one without a live audience. It is inconceivable that a debate would change my mind. I am not excited about either candidate, so this election will be about averting a disaster for the country. Both candidates are past their prime, but only one is a decent human being, surrounded by advisors who believe in an America with freedom and justice for all, even if it is sometimes slow in coming and imperfectly implemented. The other is a convicted felon whose advisors are busy preparing a blueprint for a Christian (in name but not in practice) patriarchal America. What more do we really need to know? Vote Biden if you believe in fairness and justice for everyone.
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Date: June 23rd, 2024 9:59 AM Author: Mainlining the $ecret truth of the univer$e (COORDINATES: 82.508453, -62.410526.) Roland Fagan Silver Spring, MD 54m ago [For his part, Mr. Trump is preparing to answer questions about threats to American democracy and his promise to pardon rioters involved in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. He has told associates he will emphasize that he will tackle the Jan. 6 pardons on a “case by case” basis and will distinguish between those who committed violence and those who didn’t.]
With the new debate guardrails in place, things will go along smoothly during the debate until the moment when Mr. Trump accuses Mr. Biden of directing Trump voters to attack the Capitol.
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Date: June 23rd, 2024 9:59 AM Author: Mainlining the $ecret truth of the univer$e (COORDINATES: 82.508453, -62.410526.) KathyS NY 54m ago I'm happy to see debates happening BEFORE early voting gets underway.
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Date: June 23rd, 2024 10:00 AM Author: Mainlining the $ecret truth of the univer$e (COORDINATES: 82.508453, -62.410526.) LennyM Bayside, NY 54m ago This would appear to be a last opportunity for President Biden in two ways. He is currently behind in the poles, not only nationally, but in the toss-up states that he must absolutely carry in order to win.
Issue one is whether his performance in the debate will be anything short of reassuring to the public that he is up to the task of Presidential leadership for the next four years. Given that he has set the rules for the debate, any failure here should motivate his withdrawal from the race, I think.
Secondly, again because this will be the most favorable venue for Biden (as he set the rules), he should consider withdrawal from the race if the debate does not result in a substantial increase in his polling, especially in the toss-up states.
Issue one will be subjective and leaders of the Democratic party should be ready to tell the President the truth and cease their pandering to leadership. Issue two is objective, and may be determinative as to whether the country will be subject to yet four more years of Trumpism, and worse.
It may be time for Biden to take realistic control of the country's future.
It is uncomfortable for some of us to be so negative, especially when Biden has some clear achievements. However, the dark clouds have been gathering for some time now.
Perhaps we'll all be peasantly surprised.
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Date: June 24th, 2024 8:26 AM Author: ....,.,.;;;,.,,:,.,.,::,...,..,:,..,.. "poles" (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5544283&forum_id=2...id#47773259) |
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Date: June 23rd, 2024 10:00 AM Author: Mainlining the $ecret truth of the univer$e (COORDINATES: 82.508453, -62.410526.) SED NYC 54m ago More news of the future. I don't think it used to be so common for the press to give over so much space to speculation about the future (as opposed to talking about what has actually happened).
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Date: June 23rd, 2024 10:00 AM Author: Mainlining the $ecret truth of the univer$e (COORDINATES: 82.508453, -62.410526.) Ted Siebert Chicagoland 54m ago It seems odd that a presidential debate proceeds the conventions, but it’s my prediction that Trump will ramble on and on with his gibberish. He is his own worst enemy. It will be interesting to see how well he holds up for 90 mins and no live audience.
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Date: June 23rd, 2024 10:00 AM Author: Mainlining the $ecret truth of the univer$e (COORDINATES: 82.508453, -62.410526.) SomaGuruKalki Svargha 54m ago Trump was fairly coherent and logical on the All In podcast recently so he may come across better than in 2020.
It's Biden who needs to outperform Trump because it's Biden who people are angry with much more so than people who remember the chaos of Trump's first term.
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Date: June 23rd, 2024 10:00 AM Author: Mainlining the $ecret truth of the univer$e (COORDINATES: 82.508453, -62.410526.) hawk New England 54m ago If Biden wasn’t desperately behind Trump in the polls he would have never agreed to debate him.
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Date: June 23rd, 2024 10:01 AM Author: Mainlining the $ecret truth of the univer$e (COORDINATES: 82.508453, -62.410526.) P Pt109 LA 54m ago I have anxiety about this debate. The last time they debated, Biden froze, like he had lost his mind for a sec. His features mismatched many moments. And the wear and tear of the job I’m sure has made matters worse.
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Date: June 23rd, 2024 10:01 AM Author: Mainlining the $ecret truth of the univer$e (COORDINATES: 82.508453, -62.410526.) History Guy Connecticut 54m ago I fear the stakes are way higher for Biden than Trump. And I fear the kind of muddled responses and bewildered looks we've all seen the president evince in his public appearances.
We already know what we're going to get from Trump. Like all blowhard bullies he will try his best to maintain decorum but his true self will come out.
This is Biden's debate to win or lose. And, if the latter, in a decisive manner, this election is over.
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Date: June 23rd, 2024 10:01 AM Author: Mainlining the $ecret truth of the univer$e (COORDINATES: 82.508453, -62.410526.) buettisman Boulder CO 54m ago I think we're all hoping both candidates literally implode on stage, clearing the way for 2 younger, more vibrant choices.
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Date: June 23rd, 2024 10:01 AM Author: Mainlining the $ecret truth of the univer$e (COORDINATES: 82.508453, -62.410526.) Davidp Arizona 1h ago I’m super looking forward to this debate to finally hear a serious discussion of important policy issues between two highly qualified people chosen by our two most prominent political parties to vie for arguably the most important role any single human can have on this planet. So grateful we have this great system in place.
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Date: June 23rd, 2024 10:01 AM Author: Mainlining the $ecret truth of the univer$e (COORDINATES: 82.508453, -62.410526.) Peaceloveunity&truth Northern Minnesota 1h ago I am hoping the majority of America will tune in to this debate. If Joe Biden has the strong voice he had in the State of the Union address, he may be able to sway some undecided voters.
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Date: June 23rd, 2024 10:23 AM Author: Mainlining the $ecret truth of the univer$e (COORDINATES: 82.508453, -62.410526.) Jim Bend Oregon 2m ago Bill Clinton has acknowledged that Trump is really good at “branding”. That’s not something Biden can do. Ronald Reagan was masterful with concise one liners that clearly laid out the issues voters were concerned about. I watched Trump’s rally at Temple yesterday. If he brings that same energy to the debate Biden is in big trouble.
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Date: June 23rd, 2024 10:24 AM Author: Mainlining the $ecret truth of the univer$e (COORDINATES: 82.508453, -62.410526.) BB LA 2m ago Biden has the most to lose. He holds almost no press conferences or serious interviews.....because his staff is rightly fearful of what he might say.
Trump on the other hand, while not much younger than Biden, has shown no difficulty communicating without a teleprompter or notes.
If Biden stumbles or makes any gaffes....it will end his re-election chances. It's almost too much to ask of Biden at this age and condition.
He got thru the State of the Union speech because all he had to do was read the teleprompter. The thought of Biden in front of cameras for 90 minutes without help is a massive gamble.
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Date: June 23rd, 2024 10:24 AM Author: Mainlining the $ecret truth of the univer$e (COORDINATES: 82.508453, -62.410526.) Rashawn Atlanta, GA 2m ago This is the defacto superbowl for the pharmaceutical industry. A good performance by Biden could result in massive sales increases of Adderall.
Trump needs to be quiet, save for repeatedly insulting Bash and Tapper for being partisan hacks, and let Biden speak. And when Biden finishes whatever he's reading, Trump should ask for additional clarity. And that will be it for Biden. But I don't think Trump can control himself.
What are the current betting odds on Biden falling down from the podium during the debate due to old age?
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Date: June 23rd, 2024 12:48 PM Author: Mainlining the $ecret truth of the univer$e (COORDINATES: 82.508453, -62.410526.) (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5544283&forum_id=2...id#47771328) |
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Date: June 24th, 2024 9:08 AM Author: Charles Tyrwhitt Dad Biden needs to reassure his bloc he is still lucid and capable of being reasonably coherent as a figurehead for the Democratic party in public irregardless of what happens when the camera lights go off. Trump needs to reassure his bloc he can have the seriousness and gravity of a president. Both will probably achieve their goals and both will declare victory.
But old man Bidet has more to lose. Any passing performance in the debates will be quickly forgotten when the next clip surfaces of a declining old man wandering off. And there's 4+ months till the election for that to happen.
To mitigate this, suspect there will be no real campaigning and between the debates and election day, Biden will be almost completely out of public sight with the occasional walk through at some heavily choreographed event. |