Donald Trump might lose his first debate with Joe Biden

Trump might have goofed by accepting the new rules and the biased CNN moderators

The rules for this month’s debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden have been finalized by CNN and the candidates. Contrary to what you might think, I am not optimistic about Trump’s chances, given the set of rules and the moderators. I do not know why Trump agreed to any of it, but I suspect it might blow up in his face.

Before I get into the details, here’s a report from Politico that covers the rules:

The cable network announced several steps it is taking to facilitate civil discourse at the candidates’ first meeting of the 2024 campaign — including muting mics to avoid interruptions between turns, nixing a studio audience and placing two commercial breaks in the 90-minute broadcast. These and other rules were agreed upon by both the Biden and Trump campaigns on Saturday ahead of the June 27 debate in Atlanta.

Several rules appear designed to prevent a repeat of the first debate of the 2020 presidential cycle — an openly hostile meeting where Trump repeatedly interrupted Biden and led to Biden’s noteworthy retort of “Will you shut up, man?” Candidates will be assigned their podium position by a coin flip, where they will be provided with a pen, a pad of paper and a water bottle. Pre-written notes and props will be prohibited on stage.

But other rules, slight deviations from previous debates, may have a more significant impact on strategy. With no opening statements, candidates will go straight into answering questions from the moderators, CNN’s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash. They will have two minutes each for answers, one minute for rebuttals and one minute for responses to the rebuttals.

Meeting a major demand of the Biden campaign, no audience will be present, depriving Trump of a form of oxygen that has inflated his stage presence in previous town halls and public forums. Several Biden aides expressed an interest in avoiding a shouting match or spectacle that a crowd often feeds into, POLITICO previously reported.

“[M]oderators will use all tools at their disposal to enforce timing and ensure a civilized discussion,” CNN told the campaigns in a letter.

Let’s start with the moderators: Jake Tapper and Dana Bash. I am not going to bother trying to convince you of their political bias. To experience it, you need to do nothing but go and look at Jake Tapper and Dana Bash’s X pages. I rest my case. 🙄

These woke commie clowns will show Donald Trump no mercy whatsoever, and you can bet they will run interference for Biden at every opportunity. This is nothing new, every single presidential election cycle, the Republican candidate stupidly agrees to have people like Tapper and Bash be the moderators, and every single time they slant things to help the Democrat.

You can expect the moderators to interrupt Trump, give him hardball questions, give Biden extra time, and anything else they can come up with to try to hurt Trump. Does anyone reading this doubt that CNN won’t make sure that Biden has the questions in advance to aid his performance? Do I even need to bring up Donna Brazile and the Clinton campaign?

Let’s move on to the two candidates themselves, starting with Biden.

First, the expectations for Biden are so low that if he manages to stand on the stage for the entire debate without keeling over, it will be considered a win. Everybody knows that Biden is a train wreck with dementia, and so almost nobody expects him to beat Trump in the traditional way. In fact, the expectation for Biden is the exact opposite. People expect him to lose in such a disastrous way that if he can avoid it, he will be considered the winner.

Second, Biden will be so pumped full of drugs to make him lucid that he might just pull off a credible performance. Don’t underestimate the power of his doctors to find just the right combination and dosage of medications to give him a temporary boost in his faculties. They goofed on the State of the Union speech when they gave him too much, and he started yelling. This time, they will likely be much more careful with what they give him. Just enough to juice him up without sending him over the top.

Now let’s move on to Trump. As I noted at the beginning, he goofed when accepting the rules, the venue, and the moderators. None of it helps him, and all of it together might very well hurt him. I don’t doubt Trump’s charisma or his comfort with being in front of the camera; he is quite adept at performing in a way that few others can match in politics.

But there’s something more to consider here. Take note of this section from the Politico report:

Biden’s former chief of staff, Ron Klain, said he would reprise his role as the president’s longtime debate coach as the campaign looks toward the final week before the event to undertake organized rehearsals. Trump is taking a “looser” approach to preparations, discussing larger-scale ideas and one-line quips with his inner circle, The New York Times reported.

That last part about Trump bothers me. If true, it suggests that he might be taking this debate lightly by expecting Biden to be so bad that he doesn’t need to do serious preparation. That might come back to bite him in the ass if Biden can pull off a credible performance and the biased CNN moderators do all they can to help him.

Why isn’t Trump taking this debate more seriously? Yes, Biden is a train wreck, but even a train wreck can sometimes keep his shit together enough to survive. And that is exactly what Biden needs to do at this debate: pull off a credible performance and survive politically so that the Democrats do not seriously attempt to replace him as the candidate.

If I remember correctly, Trump did not do much preparation for his 2020 debates with Biden, and that likely hurt him there too. No matter how low the expectations for Biden are, Trump should prepare seriously. Remember that this debate is not going to be Donald Trump versus Joe Biden. Instead, it is going to be Donald Trump versus Joe Biden and the CNN moderators.

Any misstep by Trump is going to result in him being pounced on by the biased CNN moderators. They will seek to magnify it as much as they can so that it can be blasted all over the Internet and traditional media in an attempt to drive down his poll numbers. You can bet that CNN will have nasty traps laid for Trump in advance, and that they will give Joe Biden the easiest questions they can get away with without completely destroying their credibility.

Perhaps I’m just being a Negative Ned here? But it seems to me that the conditions necessary for Trump to fail in this debate have been painstakingly set up. Worse, Trump has agreed to all of them, despite the fact that he is beating Biden in certain polls, and thus has the ability to negotiate for more favorable conditions.

Imagine if Tucker Carlson had been one of the moderators instead of two CNN woke commies? Carlson would have been much fairer to Trump while still asking tough questions. Carlson would also have made sure that Biden did not get softball questions, and he would have held his feet to the fire about the Biden family’s corruption in Ukraine. Yet, as far as I know, Trump never tried to negotiate to get Carlson in as a moderator.

Well, we’ll see how it goes. If I’m wrong and Trump kicks Biden’s ass, then so be it. But I doubt very much that it will be that simple or easy for Trump. The knives at CNN are out for him, and they intend to draw blood. He better be ready for them.

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