People walk past signs outside of the McCamish Pavilion on the Georgia Institute of Technology campus one day ahead of the first 2024 presidential debate between US President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, in Atlanta, Ga. on June 26.ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/Getty Images
Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former fixer, has some insight into how Joe Biden can triumph in tonight’s presidential debate. He says the best way for Mr. Biden to get under his opponent’s skin is to make fun of him.
That might work. For instance Mr. Biden could note how Mr. Trump is spending a lot of time getting the right running mate. Then, with a glint in his eye, ask “How about cellmates? Any preferences there?”
Of course Mr. Trump will rebut any references to him being a convicted felon with zingers about Hunter Biden. To which Joe Biden should reply, “My son isn’t the one running for president.”
Usually it’s Mr. Trump, with his flurry of insults, who lays low his opponents. Mr. Biden needs to turn the tables on him, put him on the defensive, bring on a hissy fit. He’s been aggressive on the campaign trail recently, giving Mr. Trump some of his own medicine by reminding audiences of his remedy for warding off COVID-19: bleach injection treatment.
It seems, Mr. Biden said at one stop, Mr. Trump has been trying out chlorine cocktails himself. “That’s why he’s so screwy.”
The Democrat has oodles of ammunition at his disposal for taking down the MAGA man, even more than when they squared off in two debates in 2020.
Remarkably, however, many regard Mr. Biden as the debate underdog. Expectations for doddering old Joe are low. And that’s to his advantage. Mr. Trump’s advisers have been trying to get that point across to their candidate, who said Mr. Biden is “the worst debater I have ever faced. He can’t put two sentences together.” They got Mr. Trump to change his tune and now he’s saying he is a “worthy debater” who destroyed Paul Ryan in a vice-presidential debate in 2012.
Mr. Trump has been getting much advice on the need to be disciplined in this debate. If he heeds it, he could be surprisingly effective.
Republicans are hoping of course that 81-year-old Mr. Biden plays to stereotype by coming across as a sclerotic stumblebum. Over 90 minutes, they can probably count on him butchering some syntax and forgetting names and sounding a bit wobbly at times. It won’t be as easy for Mr. Biden as the State of the Union address, when he came across as strong of voice and in command. This time he won’t have a teleprompter. Nonetheless, he’s been heavily prepping for this debate and can be expected to show a lot of vigour.
His approval ratings as President are dismal and he has been trailing Mr. Trump in the polls, so he needs this debate more than the Republican. In fact, it’s surprising Mr. Trump agreed to it and to having CNN run it with a format that has no live audience and moderators with mute buttons to prevent candidates from talking over one another. The arrangement favours a civil debater over a baloney-spewing brawler.
The Trump team has been putting out the word that the moderators, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, are brutally biased against him, so much so that the two of them may well go overboard in trying to show that they don’t favour the Democrat.
Mr. Biden will be hit hard on the inflation issue, but can at least say it’s now down to 3.3 per cent, from a high of 9.1 per cent. He will be pilloried on immigration, but can counter that he backed tough bipartisan border security legislation, which Mr. Trump rejected.
On the democracy issue, Mr. Biden will clobber the election result-denier and Jan. 6 insurgency-fomenter, reminding everyone of how he “placed a dagger at the throat of our democracy” back then and would do it again if returned to power.
He will score on women’s reproductive rights and in portraying Mr. Trump as Vladimir Putin’s poodle. He should remind viewers that it is not just Democrats who regard his opponent as a disgraced demagogue but a great many Republicans who worked in his White House and are on the record as stating how incompetent he was.
In rating this as a critically important, pivotal debate, observers are likely exaggerating. These two candidates are known quantities. Americans are locked like cement into their respective Democratic and Republican silos. There will be many developments to overshadow what happens tonight, such as the Republican and Democratic conventions, the sentencing of Mr. Trump, and another debate in September.
But with a fantastic number of viewers, the debate can be a big momentum-provider. Joe Biden is best positioned to gain it.