With the two presidential debates set — one in June and another for September — the trash-talking has already begun. President Joe Biden claimed on social media that he won both debates in 2020 and that Donald Trump hasn’t shown up since. Trump, meanwhile, challenged the president to even more debates than the two currently scheduled, referring to the president as “crooked Biden” in his comments.
Watch the above video as Straight Arrow News contributor Jordan Reid sorts out the agreed-upon rules of the two debates and looks at the risks that the candidates are taking.
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The following is an excerpt from the above video:
The Biden team had to impose a set of rules. First, there will be no in-studio audience. This is a hat tip to the Biden team’s awareness that nothing gets Trump going quite like a crowd, as well as the fact that a crowd is likely to make it very difficult for Biden, or the moderator, frankly, to be heard over the jeering and cheering.
The debates will also likely feature microphones that can and presumably will be turned off if a candidate speaks out of turn, which is going to happen, like a lot.
Now, the debates will be interesting, I’m sure. But in this particular moment, it feels to me like the stakes are way higher for Biden. Trump will say what he says … that’s just Trump being Trumpy, but if Biden slips up, a smushed mouth, loses his cool after a particularly hideous, painful jab from Trump about — I don’t know, his family — the Republicans will be all over it. That has to be an incredibly stressful position in which to find himself, again, considering the stakes at hand here. And Biden definitely knows that. His team just rejected Trump’s stated desire for two additional debates by stating, “The debate about the debates is over, no more games.”
Well, here’s hoping.
Have a look at how our other contributors view this issue from across the political spectrum:
David Pakman: Why Trump might opt out of debating Biden.