Conquer Club

Trump and Biden cram final prep and ready attack lines ahead of next week's debate
As the June 27 event nears, the Biden team's approach is "like cramming for a final," while the Trump campaign says it's focused on informal policy sessions.

One is secluding himself at a mountainside retreat with a tight circle of advisers, poring over briefing binders, honing attack lines and bracing for personal smears. The other is workshopping responses and retorts with vice presidential hopefuls, sharpening policy lines while working to rein in his bombastic rhetoric.

In some ways, aides to President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump describe similar goals heading into next Thursday’s presidential debate: painting their opponent as presiding over disorder and wholly unfit for office.

For two men who have been circling each other rhetorically for the past four years, the debate hosted by CNN in Atlanta amounts to a moment of high consequence. Both candidates are aware of the stakes, officials in both campaigns say, as they huddle with their teams to prepare attacks, form rebuttals and frame the choice of November’s election.

jusplay4fun wrote:So let me get this right: Biden has been at Camp David since...Friday...??... to prepare for the debate 6 days away, while....

Trump, among other things, is going to different places to campaign?
(I assume he discusses some ideas for the debate at some point with his staff.)

Biden can ONLY do debate prep for SIX DAYS? I do not give me "Biden is running the country" argument; his aides, staff, and various Secretaries do that already.

bigtoughralf wrote:Would those be mistakes? Half of them look like central pillars of his election campaign.

I like your 'don't make a gaffe' advice though. Simply don't make any mistakes and you'll go down really well with the audience!

Joe Biden's Chances of Making Gaffes During Debate, According to Oddsmaker

The number of gaffes likely to be committed by President Joe Biden during this Thursday's presidential debate with Donald Trump is just one of nearly four dozen bets available, according to new odds from an international bookmaker.

The presidential hopefuls each vying for their second term in a rematch of the 2020 election will come face-to-face on June 27 at the CNN network studio in Atlanta in the critical battleground state of Georgia, as part of a live event that will feature no audience and new rules compared to the last time the pair debated roughly four years ago.

The Panama-headquartered oddsmaker BetOnline showed as of Monday afternoon that Biden's "mix-ups" are currently projected at over/under 2.5. No such bet exists for Trump.

"There's a high level of interest and wagering on this debate," Adam Burns, sportsbook manager for BetOnline, told Newsweek via email on Monday. "We have Game 7 of the Stanley Cup, Game 3 of the College World Series, and the NBA Draft this week. There will be more money bet on the debate than any of those sporting events individually. And here's the real kicker: For the election itself there will be more money wagered on it than this year's Super Bowl."

BetOnline is offering 47 prop bets for interested parties, due to the election representing the 47th presidency.

Other available bets include who will win the debate, which has Trump at -150 (60 percent probability); whether the candidates will shake hands before or after the debate (+700 or 12.5 percent probability); viewership (over/under 80.5 million); the number of Trump "non-facts" stated by Trump (over/under 15.5); and the first candidate to interrupt a moderator (Trump is at -250 or 71.4 percent probability).

HitRed wrote:And the odds of the moderator interrupting Trump?

NY Times calls on Biden to drop out of 2024 presidential race ‘to serve his country’ after abysmal debate performance

The New York Times editorial board called on President Biden to step aside as the presumptive Democratic nominee in the 2024 presidential race Friday, one day after his abysmal performance in a debate against Donald Trump.

While insisting that Biden, 81, had been an “admirable president,” the liberal Grey Lady concluded the incumbent appeared on the debate stage as “the shadow of a great public servant” and would be engaging in a “reckless gamble” by continuing his candidacy.

Trump Widens Lead After Biden’s Debate Debacle, Times/Siena Poll Finds

Donald Trump is ahead of President Biden by six percentage points among likely voters in a new national survey. Overall, 74 percent of voters view Mr. Biden as too old for the job, an uptick since the debate.

Donald J. Trump’s lead in the 2024 presidential race has widened after President Biden’s fumbling debate performance last week, as concerns that Mr. Biden is too old to govern effectively rose to new heights among Democrats and independent voters, a new poll from The New York Times and Siena College showed.

Mr. Trump now leads Mr. Biden 49 percent to 43 percent among likely voters nationally, a three-point swing toward the Republican from just a week earlier, before the debate. It is the largest lead Mr. Trump has recorded in a Times/Siena poll since 2015. Mr. Trump leads by even more among registered voters, 49 percent to 41 percent.

jonesthecurl wrote:Biden's performance was obviously disappointing. But trump's lies, obfuscations, and completely ignoring the questions probably won him no new fans. One can hope.

Former President Donald Trump repeated his nonsensical claim that “every legal scholar” wanted Roe v. Wade overruled, thereby rescinding women’s constitutional right to end unwanted pregnancy the Supreme Court had recognized in 1973. It reflects his effort to both take credit for ending Roe while distancing himself from its practical impacts.

Academic views of Roe were divided, as they are on many legal issues, and most Americans disapproved of the 2022 decision to overrule the precedent--a 5-4 decision made possible with the votes of three Trump-appointed justices. Trump characterized the 2022 decision as ushering in a harmonious era where each state could find its own equilibrium regarding abortion regulation, from outright bans to leaving decisions over pregnancy to women and their doctors. In fact, the 2022 decision created a patchwork of laws and created uncertainty over myriad related issues, including the future availability of abortion pills from mail-order pharmacies, that already have gotten a first look from the Supreme Court.

Biden made at least nine false or misleading claims in the debate. He used false numbers while describing two of his key Medicare policies, falsely claimed that no US troops had been killed on his watch, repeated his usual misleading figure about billionaires’ tax rates, baselessly claimed that Trump wants to eliminate Social Security, falsely said that the unemployment rate was 15% when he took office, inaccurately said that the Border Patrol union had endorsed him before clarifying that he was talking about agents’ support for the border bill he had backed, and exaggerated Trump’s 2020 comments about the possibility of treating Covid-19 by injecting disinfectant.

Here is a detailed fact check from CNN’s reporting team of some of those claims.

Pack Rat wrote:President Biden did not take 2 full weeks to practice his poor debate skills. He was traveling to Europe twice to reinforce our alliance.

Let's not forget Trump's ability to lie more than 30 times in the 90 minute debate. Both did horribly!