Trump says he’ll debate Biden as many times as necessary: ‘We have an obligation’

return2ozma@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 73 points –
Trump says he’ll debate Biden as many times as necessary: ‘We have an obligation’
thehill.com
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I hate this entire topic.

For one, I feel like debates are usually very important, but in this specific case, we have two candidates who have already served as President. There is no chance to learn anything about these candidates from a debate.

Not only that, but they debated before, and it was an absolute shit show. But we've already seen them debate. It's hard to imagine what benefit we'd get from repeating that mess.

And Presidential debates have been useless for decades now. They get asked a question, and if the question has any bite to it, the candidates just ignore the question and try to make soundbites from partial speeches that they prepared ahead of time about any adjacent topic.

Trump bucked that trend by not being prepared, but just being an asshole and talking stream-of-conscious gibberish over all of his opponents. Biden more than held his own last time, but it seems to me that he's become more soft-spoken lately. I imagine just from appearances, it would seem like loud-mouthed Trump would come out on top this time. But being a loud-mouth is not really what makes somebody a good President.

Debate Nikki Haley first, chicken 🐔

Honestly I'm fully in favor of this. Biden's gaffes are much more understandable when they happen in context, as opposed to clipped sound-bites or reported by your favorite source of bias.

He should get in front of the camera more, not less. And he should do his practice debates, not with a debate-coach, but with a talk show host. Like, Jimmy Kimmel, Bill Maher or John Oliver or someone.

He should get in front of the camera more, not less.

Agree there, but hard disagree on him doing it on a debate stage with Trump. Maybe if presidential debates were held like real debates with an impartial moderator who had to be followed, but they aren't. They're a chance for politicians to talk or yell over each other. They're useless most of the time and especially useless when Trump is involved.

He did fine last time. I think Trump has deteriorated more than he has.

Did fine by what metric? Because it's really not about cognitive abilities to debate. I just don't see a good reason to do it. It sounds like both a waste of Biden's time and a chance to give Trump ammo by ignoring ever crazy thing he says but putting every gaffe Biden makes into a supercut he plays at every rally.

Doing it would mainly call Trump's bluffs, and help put to rest the "handlers are hiding him from the public" line of attack.

And did fine by my personal opinion. If my memory serves, he mainly played to the calm in the face of Trump's crazy, and it worked well. Particularly with moderates.

His bluffs are never-ending and he can put that to rest by simply not hiding from the public. Just get out there and talk. He doesn't need to stand on a stage while Trump yells over him.

I disagree, I think showing the contrast directly is necessary in the face of modern media bubbling. Trump yelling over him does not hurt him.

Who doesn't already know the contrast?

Unfortunately, a fair number of people, most likely. People can have short memories with politics, and the presidential debates tend to draw a wide audience. On top of that, some people are simply new to the political world in the past 4 years, finally reaching voting age and such.

He's a veteran politician, spent decades in the Senate. There's probably few people on the planet that can handle yelling as smoothly as he can. He'll benefit from facing it down. People want strength and resilience in a president.

Did Hillary benefit from it?

No, but she had to battle sexism and subconscious biases. He's in a different situation.

Hilary probably should've gone for the nuts. It's not fair, but neither is politics.

How about debates that are actually debates, moderated by an independent and not partisan entertainers? I'm no fan of Trump but those are all strongly Democrat supporters. If you're trying to sway independent votes, biased moderation sours the desired audience.

Maher is pretty centrist, actually. Dude is straight up anti-mask, for instance. He has quite a few conservative positions, he'd prob be a repub if they weren't batshit insane these days.

And, reread my comment, since I haven't even mentioned anyone moderating. That one came out of your brain, not my comment.

Yeah that's true about Bill Maher. My mistake was actually vision related though. I can barely read on my phone screen. I'm usually on a large monitor with everything oversized. But I can't always have access to it. Practicing with talk show hosts is an interesting idea.

I still stand by my take on biased moderators though. If I watch a hostile interview on Fox I root for the person they're against. If I watch a hostile interview on MSNBC I root for the person they're against. They're all shit but in very different ways, mostly. They're all sold out to the ultrarich so they have that in common.

And he should do his practice debates, not with a debate-coach, but with a talk show host.

He never said they should moderate the debate.

Anyone want to take bets on Trump backing out as soon as Biden takes him up on the offer?

This feels like Elon trying to get that boxing match with Zuckerberg then pussing out on it when Zuckerberg accepted the challenge.

I bet one lemmy penny that he does a debate. He got out of the republican debates because he was the clear winner, but no federal election debate would show weakness and that would be bad for his brand.

I also think the debates will be an absolute disaster for all parties involved which will benefit trump as his side doesn't care what he says or does.

There’s nothing of value to gain from a debate with a felonious liar. Especially when none of his lies will be checked by moderators and probably not even well checked by Biden himself.

This whole miserable election is just pigeon chess.

He knows they won’t turn his mic off and Biden will probably make another gaff, and he might be able to string together a couple of semi-coherent insults that his base will just eat up.

“Poopyhead” will likely feature.

Obligations? He needs to pay his god dmn bills and fines - start with that

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Trump, who has declined to participate in any Republican primary debates even as the field has narrowed to two candidates, said at a Fox News town hall with Laura Ingraham that he sees it as an obligation to attend general election debates.

Trump has cited his significant polling lead to justify opting out of the primary debates, and he has not paid much of a price with Republican voters, easily winning the first three primary contests.

A Biden campaign official in December said the president’s team “will have those conversations” about debates in the future.

The former president’s willingness to debate Biden comes as polls have shown Trump with a narrow lead in several key swing states.

It marks a change of tune for Trump, who has long blasted the Commission on Presidential Debates as biased.

The Republican National Committee signaled last year it would not have its eventual nominee participate in debates run by the commission.


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