Fox News media analyst Howard Kurtz warned that President Donald Trump’s campaign may be “setting the bar so low” for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s debate performance that it could backfire.
“I think the debates will happen, but there is a growing movement in left-wing media circles that Biden should just skip them because they say either it’s too risky, President Trump won’t play fair, or — and this is a perennial complaint — they’re basically just too superficial and scripted,” Kurz said Wednesday on “America’s Newsroom” before calling it “sheer hypocrisy.”
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“Now many of these people, their heads would have exploded if Donald Trump had blown off the debates in 2016, and it would be a terrible idea for Biden, who would be passing off a prime opportunity to convince the country he’s up for the job,” he continued.
Kurtz’s analysis comes as Trump himself portrayed Biden as someone who “can’t put two sentences together.” Others, including journalist Elizabeth Drew, have called for Biden to withdraw from the debates entirely.
Referring to Drew’s New York Times op-ed, Kurtz said, “So I think many of these people want to protect Biden because perhaps they are worried he won’t do that well.”
“People forget in the Democratic debates, he had some missteps and he had some off nights, Joe Biden generally did do pretty well, and the Trump team is setting the bar so low by suggesting that he’ll have trouble just getting up on the stage and being coherent,” Kurtz warned, adding that he feels the debates will proceed as planned. (RELATED: Rasmussen: Is Joe Biden Capable Of Debating Donald Trump? Only 54% Say Yes)
“This is sort of the shadowboxing part of the program,” he concluded.
Biden’s wife, Dr. Jill Biden, told Fox News’ Dana Perino this week that her husband plans to compete in all three scheduled debates.