After shadow boxing for months, taking jabs and lobbing insults, Donald Trump will meet his challenger in a socially distanced way Tuesday evening for the first of three debates. The bar is high for Trump in the age of COVID. Can he con the country into wanting the chaos he generates for four more years when there are 200,000 Americans dead from the virus on his watch?
Will the rally-loving president be able to perform in an almost empty debate hall without an audience of admirers chanting “fill that seat”?
For Joe Biden, this will be the first sustained look voters get at him. Will he measure up? Will he seem energetic? Will he forget an obvious phrase like “Social Security” or say something stupid that dates him?
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“The key phrase: Avoid catastrophic mistakes,” says Jack Pitney, professor of American politics at Claremont McKenna College, and a Republican operative before he went into academia. Debates are normally not decisive. Hillary Clinton won all three in 2016 and lost the election, and Barack Obama, running for re-election on 2012, lost the first debate badly to Republican Mitt Romney. “If it had been a boxing match, they would have called it,” says Pitney.
Trump is a master of distraction and deflection, and his real opponent for re-election is the deadly and still spreading virus. “If I were advising Biden,” Pitney told the Daily Beast, “I’d say, ‘Repeat after me: 200,000 200,000 200,000.’ When he’s asked about the Supreme Court nominee, say she’ll take away health care from Americans. Talk about the death toll.”
The 90-minute debate free of commercials will cover six subjects chosen by moderator Chris Wallace, an endurance contest that will test “Sleepy Joe,” Trump’s nickname for Biden, and whether he can project the energy at age 77 to do the job he’s running for. That question will be on voters’ minds, along with how he will handle Trump’s lies and bullying.
Biden is not doing mock debates and is relying on a seasoned team of aides, led by Ron Klain, to fire questions at him. Klain has been part of Biden’s inner circle for decades, going back to when Biden chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee. They know his vulnerabilities, and one of them is getting indignant over any alleged scandal related to his son, Hunter.
Questions about Hunter are legitimate, and getting Biden to recognize that, calmly answer, and then move on, is part of debate prep. Getting angry is OK, but only if it’s anger expressed on the part of voters over Trump’s disregard for democratic norms and traditions, his allegedly calling fallen servicemen “suckers and losers,” and his assault on the Affordable Care Act.
At a recent fundraiser, Biden said, “I hope I don’t get baited into a brawl with this guy because that’s the only place he’s comfortable,” then quickly adding, “I know how to deal with bullies.”
Trump says he never prepares for debates, that life has prepared him. Whichever top aide is traveling with him on Air Force One has been tasked with tossing him questions to get him debate-ready. But that aide is probably too scared to critique his answers, and once Trump is on a roll, there’s no telling where he’ll go. The debate topics announced in advance are: 1) the Trump and Biden records, 2) the Supreme Court, 3) COVID-19, 4) the economy, 5) race and violence in cities, 6) the integrity of the election.
Democrats worry Biden will say something off-key that will remind voters of his age or his tendency to wander off course before making a point. But Biden doesn’t have to win. He has to avoid losing.
Asked if there’s anything that could happen in Tuesday’s debate that would alter his prediction that Biden will win the election, Allan Lichtman, the American University political scientist who almost alone predicted Trump would win in 2016, said, “Obviously not.” His longstanding and well-tested election model of 13 “big-picture” keys to measure political strength and personal attributes won’t change at this late date “unless something obviously catastrophic happens that’s never happened before—like Trump punching Biden out. And with Trump you never know.”
Lichtman notes that Trump’s insults won’t work on Biden the way they did on Hillary, “who for whatever reason sparked a lot of negative reactions. Insulting Biden is not the same thing.”
Two recent town halls offer a preview of how this first debate might unfold. Biden did well with a hometown crowd in Scranton, coming across as in command as well as empathetic, while Trump seemed flustered by questions from undecided voters in a town hall carried live on ABC. Trump talked about “herd mentality” when he meant “herd immunity,” and when pressed on health care, promised for the umpteenth time he would unveil his plan in the coming days. (He did, but it’s nothing more than a wish list.)
“Biden has only one option, speak to America, speak to the camera, say ‘There you go again,’ channel Reagan—and keep asking the question, “Are you better off today than you were 4 years ago’?” says Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow in the governance program at the Brookings Institution, recalling the first presidential debate she worked on in 1980 for Jimmy Carter.
“We tried our damnedest to turn Reagan into a monster,” she said, but the amiable movie actor didn’t come across like a trigger-happy bomb-thrower, easing voter concerns that he was too extreme. The debate, just seven days before the election, helped propel Reagan toward his landslide win.
Trump and his allies have pushed the idea Biden is too old and doddering to be president, lowering the bar to where Biden should easily clear it—much the way Reagan did in 1980.
“Biden should just sort of shake his head and say, ‘Donald, that’s not true – You say you’re for protecting people with pre-existing conditions, then why is your administration in court trying to overturn the ACA (Affordable Care Act)? Call him on the lies in a very calm way.”
Biden has risen to the challenge in two previous presidential-level debates, but that was 12 years ago, when he faced Republican Paul Ryan, and eight years ago, when he took on Sarah Palin. He was judged the winner in both contests. But he’s older now, and during the primaries, he tended to make his worst gaffes in the final half-hour when he was tired or had gotten too comfortable and let down his guard as though he was in a bull session with friends.
He can’t let that happen with Trump. Whatever happens Tuesday evening, the record number of millions who tune in are guaranteed a good show from the very first moment. Will Biden call Trump Mr. President? (Probably not). Will Trump call Biden Mr. Vice President? (Surely not). And will moderator Chris Wallace get Trump to commit to honor the results of the election? Not with two more debates to go and thousands still to die. Trump won’t give up on destroying democracy if it distracts from the virus.
