America's Talking - Trump, Biden Want to Debate Before Election, but Details Vague

Episode Date: May 17, 2024

President Joe Biden said Wednesday that he plans to debate former President Donald Trump twice before the November election, but the details have yet to be worked out. Biden challenged Trump to debate in a video message posted Wednesday. "Well, make my day, pal," Biden said in the video. "I'll even do it twice." Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Greetings and welcome to America in Focus powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAlipp, Chief Content Officer at Franklin News Foundation, publisher of the Center Square Newswire Service. We are recording this on Friday, May 17th. President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, the presumptive nominees of their respective parties heading into the November elections, agreed this way to take part in two debates. Trump's hush money trial, meanwhile, is winding down with jurors likely to begin deliberations next week. And new polling out this week shows Trump continuing to hold a lead over Biden, both nationally and in key swing states. Join me to discuss all of these developments as Casey Harper, Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief at the Center Square. Casey, let's start with the latest

polling. You wrote about it at thecentersquare.com. What can you tell our listeners? I can tell our listeners that whatever staffers are huddled over the computers at the Biden campaign headquarters or having a bad week. These polls do not look good for the incumbent President Joe Biden, and they do look good for former President Donald Trump. Now, there's a long ways to go until November, but, and if you look at the national polling, it doesn't look too drastic. I mean, if you just polled, you know, 5,000 people randomly across the country, you're probably going to get a near 50-50 split one way or the other. Different polls vary. But if you start looking at the the important swing states, Dan, you see a much different picture. In fact, you see Trump winning

nearly all of the swing states. And of course, we know the way the electoral college is set up. You know, most states are called almost immediately. California goes for Democrats. You know, Texas goes for Republicans. We know much of that is a foregone conclusion, unless there's a particularly radical candidate or particularly, you know, charismatic candidate who's, who throw some of those states back in play, I don't think we're going to see that this year. What we're seeing is the traditional fight over the swing states. And those states right now are trending towards Trump. So, for example, according to real clear politics, which takes many polls and aggregates them into kind of one data point. I really like those because it's less prone to the biases of one

poll, you know, because it aggregates them. So Arizona, for instance, swing state, Trump is up 5.2 points. Georgia, another swing state. I believe that's two Democratic senators right now. Trump is up 4.6 points. Michigan, Trump is up narrowly at just under one point, which is within the margin of error. Of course, a Democratic governor and part of the legislature there. Exactly. Nevada, he's got a whopping 6.2 point lead this week. Another Democratic governor. Right. North Carolina, 5.4 point lead. Pennsylvania, he's up 2.2. points, which is like a Biden state in a real sense. Culturally, I think Biden, you know, a state that Biden considers his own. And then Wisconsin, Trump is narrowly up half a point just

about. So you see that if you look at these battleground states, I mean, defining a battleground state is a little bit of a judgment call, but whichever way you slice it right now, Trump is winning in these battleground states. Of course, Trump faces four separate criminal indictments across the U.S. One of those criminal cases has been ongoing in New York City over the past few weeks, expected to go to a jury next week probably. So that case could be settled before you know it. But it seems like since these criminal cases, you know, have emerged, it's only helped Trump.

What do you expect? I know you're not covering it. the case. We're not in New York City covering the hush money trial against Trump. I mean, any feelings about how that's going to turn? Yeah, I mean, well, just to your other point, it's it is a certainty that these criminal indictments have helped Trump. I mean, it's not clear that Trump would have even won the primary, if not for these indictments. If you look at the polling, the trends, and then you insert the data point of Trump's, you know, the FBI raid Amar Lago, that is the turning point in the Trump campaign. And it's been up and up,

since then. And so in a real sense, that FBI raid totally changed the Republican primary and set Trump up on this dominant trajectory in the Republican Party. And then, of course, you know, Trump versus Biden is, it is what it is. And it's bigger than that FBI raid. But it's certainly Trump's legal issues in a real sense got him to where he is now. Now, it may be that they helped him win the primary, but caused him to lose to general. That is possible. And it's going to depend on where these, these next cases go. I'll say that Trump has had some big wins on some of these cases. For instance, the Supreme Court seemed pretty amenable to the idea that he had some area of executive privilege on some of his dealings with January 6th. Some of the other, for instance, Georgia racketeering case

has taken some big hits with some sense of bias among the prosecutor, which we've talked about. and also, you know, she had some kind of alleged relationship that may have used money inappropriately in that Trump case, which is not a good look for her. It hurts the case against Trump. And so Trump has had some victories in some of these cases. Now, the Stormy Daniels case has been a tough one against Trump, you know, the idea that he used campaign funds to pay off some kind of do some kind of paying off of Stormy Daniels and then didn't file it correctly. You know, that case has been ongoing. I will say, you know, we'll see soon how that goes, but I will say that that case had a tough hit this week as well with the testimony of Michael Cohen, Dan. Just briefly, Michael Cohen took a beating on the sand. I mean, you know, that's my read on it.

I'm not alone in that read. Much of the media said it was probably the best day that Trump has had in this case. And essentially, they played these clips of Michael Cohen from his own podcast where he explicitly said that he wants to get revenge. on Trump. And so the Trump, you know, team is arguing in court that Michael Cohen is lying just to get revenge on Trump, which Michael Cohen has clearly said that he does want that revenge. And so it was a good day for that case. But man, I mean, even with all these wins and the potential for a lot of these cases to drag out beyond November, it's still not a good day, you know, when you have this many legal battles. Trump can barely even find time to debate Biden, which we can talk about if we'd like. Because we can only do it on Wednesdays because he's in court the rest of the time.

Right. Well, let's – Michael Cohen, of course, is Trump's former lawyer, now public enemy number three or something like that. But let's briefly, in the time we have left talk about the debates, sort of out of nowhere, Trump and Biden agreed to two debates outside of the normal debate process. Just briefly bring our listeners up to speed on that, Casey. Yeah, I mean, this is a culmination of a long, drawn-out process. Trump has been mocking Biden. been pulling out this podium at his rallies and saying, you know, where's Biden? I'll debate him anytime, any place, anywhere, you know. And he's been, everyone's been laughing at the rallies and he's been making fun of Biden for not being willing to debate. The debate committee wanted to have these

debates much later in the year, like September, but both the Biden and Trump team were like, you know, people vote so early now in many of these states. We need earlier debates. There's been kind of a wrestle over that. I had a theory that for a while, both, you know, the Biden campaign, didn't really want to debate, and maybe Trump didn't either, they were just both posturing and purposefully disagreeing on the terms of the debate so that they could say, well, I want to debate, but Trump won't agree to it. And I want a debate, but Biden won't agree to it. And I still think that's a real chance that's what's happening. But I think that's what the teams are doing behind the scenes. But meanwhile, the candidates are saying different things. So Biden said

on Howard Stern show that he's willing to debate. I think that kind of changed the game. So they're trying to agree on terms. They've said they will debate. But I think there's a real chance that it'll also fall apart and they'll blame each other over technicalities because maybe they don't want to debate after all. But right now it looks more likely than ever. I'm going to disagree with you on one point, Casey. You can be wrong if you want. It's okay. I do think Trump is eager debate President Biden. I think he thinks at least that he is a significantly better debater than Biden. Of course, there's been questions about Biden's age and his mental capacity. What's what's curious for me, and we've got to wrap it up here, Casey. What's curious to me, though,

is that the Biden, or excuse me, Trump agreed to the debate hosts being CNN and ABC News, both of which have been highly critical of the former president. But I think Trump doesn't care. I think when he gets on a debate stage with Biden, he thinks, at least, that he'll crush him. Anyway, Casey, thank you for joining us today. Listeners can keep up with this story and more at the center square.com.