Legally speaking, Donald Trump has been taking it on the chin, and it will impact what he can say at the debate.
However, after a coin flip, he will have the final word in the presidential debate, after Joe Biden put more emphasis on stage position over speaking position.
Talking Points…
- Debate challenges
- Trump to speak last
- Analysis
Donald Trump and Joe Biden are set to square off on Thursday night in Atlanta, with CNN hosting the first presidential debate of the election season. With Kennedy failing to meet the criteria, this will be a head’s up battle between Trump and Biden. This actually benefits Joe Biden, as he will only have to fend off attacks from one person now.
Thus far, this is a bit of a disaster for Trump. The hush-money gag order will be in effect during the debate, which means that Trump will not be able to defend himself against any attacks by Biden or the moderators on this front. If he does respond, he risks more fines or possibly even jail time. If CNN had any integrity, the case would be off-limits since Trump cannot discuss it.
Special Counsel Jack Smith has also filed for a gag order in the classified documents case to exclude any mention of the FBI. If Judge Cannon approves that request, this will handcuff Trump from attacks on that case as well. The Biden campaign and its supporting PACs have been using this as their new line of attack, so you know it will come up during the debate.
Joe Biden won the coin toss, but his campaign picked the standing position instead of the speaking position. Biden will stand on stage left, which will be the right side of the stage from a viewing perspective. Trump, obviously, will be on the left.
This allowed Trump to decide who speaks first and last in the summation. Smartly, Donald Trump chose to speak last, allowing him to respond to any final attacks by Joe Biden and dictate the closing narrative of the debate. Quite frankly, I don’t understand why the Biden campaign chose to select the standing position over the speaking position, as the final word seems far more important to me than where someone is standing.
Biden’s campaign more or less set the rules for this debate, as Trump conceded to just about everything to get Joe Biden on the debate stage. Microphones will be muted when the candidate is not on his turn to avoid the crosstalk, and there will be no studio audience.
The goal here is to have a “civilized” debate, nothing like what we saw during the Republican primary debates, where every debate was more or less a free-for-all, with candidates screaming over each other and pure mayhem on the stage. Quite frankly, those debates were unwatchable. While Trump has previously admitted that he probably interrupted Joe Biden too often during the 2020 debates, the downside to having the microphones muted is that Trump will not be able to knock Biden off his game.
Jake Tapper and Dana Bash will moderate the debate.
Speaking last, Trump has a significant advantage in that he will be able to leave the last impression. Again, I don’t understand why Biden wanted the standing position over the speaking position, but I am sure more will come out about that eventually.
Trump really has to have a good showing here because the Biden campaign has all the momentum right now. As polling showed, Trump took a fairly significant hit from the guilty verdict, not among Republicans, but among independent voters. Trump had a 12-point edge over Biden before the verdict, and now Biden is leading Trump by two points, so that was a fairly significant swing. And while Trump still leads in most battleground states, Biden has significantly cut into his lead. This is Trump’s chance to truly expose Biden, and he better take advantage of it.
