Biden’s high-stakes gamble risks everything – including his nomination – as he prepares for Trump debate
“It’s good to be the king,” as Mel Brooks mischievously put it in “History of the World, Part I.”
It’s also good to be the president, as Joe Biden is proving with his disappearing act.
With his job and legacy on the line, Biden seized the moment to take a week off to prepare for his debate with Donald Trump.
He’s fled the White House for the rustic retreat of Camp David, where scores of aides have built a mock TV studio so he can feel at home on CNN’s Atlanta stage Thursday night.
He’s said to be blowing off debate rust with lots of practice, getting plenty of sleep and preparing both to pummel Trump and fight off the former president’s attacks.
Leftist press accounts of Biden’s summer camp adventure stress the talent and experience of his team, all part of an effort to make it sound as if a brilliant brain trust gives the incumbent a huge advantage.
Don’t be fooled. The media are boosting their candidate because they hate Trump as much as Biden does.
Bitter Dem clingers
NBC News, for example, embarrassed itself by insisting that the president is “trying to hone a positive economic message that breaks through, even though many voters say they still don’t feel the effects of his policies in their day-to-day life when it comes to the cost of basic groceries and gas.”
Subtext: These stupid people are so much better off under Biden than they realize, so he has to explain it to them.
That’s the media’s sneaky way of calling Trump supporters deplorables and bitter clingers to God and guns.
Some people never learn.
If NBC were honest, it would note how inflation under Biden wrecked family budgets, and that he has just a 41% approval for his handling of the economy against a staggering 58% disapproval, according to the RealClearPolitics average of recent polls.
The network might also add that, with far more American saying they were stronger financially when Trump was president than they are under Biden, the incumbent can’t go near the question Ronald Reagan made famous:
Are you better off now than you were four years ago?
Most Americans would answer no, hell no, which is why NBC won’t touch it.
The answer would also be lopsided against Biden on questions about the southern border, foreign policy and crime. All of which is relevant to the reason this debate is being held so early in the campaign.
The timing is a sign of Biden’s desperation and could mark his last stand.
He’s unpopular and a semi-reclusive failure who hasn’t aged well, to put it kindly.
The overwhelming majority of voters already think he’s too old to get a second term and want him off the stage.
With polls trending in Trump’s favor, especially in most battleground states, and with some blue states suddenly in play, so many Democrats are demanding a fresh face or pledging to stay home that the president was forced to do something to try to shake up the race and prove he’s still viable.
And so, after being dodgy about whether he would debate Trump at all, Biden suddenly demanded
an early showdown to head off the possibility that his party would become so dispirited that Republicans would sweep Congress as well as the White House.
High-stakes gamble
It’s a high-stakes gamble and if the president bombs in prime time, it’s possible he will never formally get the nomination at the Dems’ August convention.
Realistically, the only way that can happen is if he agrees to step aside, but a bad performance Thursday could leave him a very lonely man.
This is no Watergate, but a debate debacle could prompt a visit from party elders telling Biden he should retire at the end of his term.
That would echo the day a GOP delegation visited Richard Nixon in the White House 50 summers ago and told him he would be impeached and convicted if he didn’t resign.
That’s how bad things are for Biden and the party. So don’t be fooled by the rosy reports of his confidence and arduous debate prep.
It’s all agitprop, an example of the party’s free media wing amplifying a $50 million Biden campaign ad buy targeting Trump in battleground states through June.
After that, it depends. His shaky hold on the party is putting enormous pressure on the president, and a mediocre performance won’t be good enough. He has to score a clear victory over Trump.
That’s why viewers should expect a mudslide of negatives against the challenger. With no success of his own to run on, Biden must demolish Trump’s character.
Count on repeated references to January 6, the 34 felony guilty verdicts against Trump in the dirty Manhattan trial and dire warnings about MAGA Man wanting revenge.
Abortion will be another Dem attack line, with the president blaming Trump for the demise of Roe v. Wade because the three Supreme Court justices he nominated were part of the majority.
One aim of Biden’s onslaught will be to get Trump angry and throw him off his game.
Biden would love nothing more than getting Trump to lose his cool in front of what is certain to be a huge national audience.
The flip side of these calculations is that Trump has a lower bar to clear. He doesn’t have to actually win the debate to remain on top. All he has to do is be sure not to lose it.
The network effect
If he can pull that off and make direct appeals to the roughly 10 to 15 percent of voters who are undecided or open to persuasion, Trump will be taking a giant leap toward a fall victory.
On the other hand, if Trump gets rattled and throws out red meat that appeals only to his base, he would be giving Biden a reprieve and an opportunity to take back the momentum.
Trump also faces another challenge in that he must contend with the two CNN moderators, who are guaranteed to discard any pretense of fairness.
Dana Bash and Jake Tapper have been stricken with Trump Derangement Syndrome for years, with Tapper likening Trump’s language to Hitler’s.
Nothing says fairness like accusations of Nazi, Nazi, Nazi.
From the get-go, CNN has boosted the White House’s disgraceful attempt to use the courts against Trump so Biden can win a second term. I would be shocked if the Bash-Tapper questions don’t reflect that bias.
Indeed, the network is so one-sided that on the rare occasion when one of its cavalcade of analysts has criticized the Department of Justice or a judge for being unfair to Trump, it’s created headlines elsewhere because it’s unusual enough to fit the classic definition of news: Man bites dog.
Don’t expect any news of that sort Thursday. The moderators will be in the tank for Biden.