Megyn Kelly doesn’t see the bar as being particularly high for Joe Biden going into his first 2024 debate against Donald Trump. “For him to emerge victorious, he’s just going to have to not… die during the 90 minutes,” Kelly said.
“I don’t think this is a mistake by Republicans, but just given reality, the stakes could not be lower for a Joe Biden performance,” Kelly argued in Monday’s edition of “The Megyn Kelly Show” on SiriusXM. She implied that Trump may have made a mistake previously, with his attacks on Biden’s age giving the Democrat the advantage on expectation-setting.
“Trump, wisely, is finally not playing down expectations for Joe Biden, finally trying to hedge a little on what he might be dealing with,” Kelly said.
But the conservative journalist still thinks the debate is a critical event, particularly with Trump seeing some decline in his polling numbers since being convicted of 34 felonies in New York.
“There has been some erosion for Trump with independents in the wake of that conviction,” Kelly explained. “And you can see the argument by the Dems that everything is going to plan. That Joe Biden’s not the ideal choice, but he beat Trump once before, he’ll beat him again by running on Trump’s personality as opposed to his [Biden’s] own accomplishments.”
Kelly added that Biden’s strategy may be to work on irritating Trump.
“Just keep poking him because Trump’s goal is to try to maintain some sense of dignity and strength, but not pettiness,” Kelly added. “And if Joe Biden just keeps needling him, Trump has some sort of a nasty meltdown that causes interrupting Trump to come back, and the numbers with women start falling, etcetera.”
Her guest, conservative commentator Victor David Hanson, said of Biden’s goals going into the debate, “I think he’ll come out, he’ll want to show everybody he’s muscular. He’ll have to stand, and he will yell in that kind of mean grimace.”
The key to Trump’s own performance, according to Hanson, is for Trump to stay low-key.
“If Trump can just keep calm and just talk about what the Biden record is versus what his record was and what his plan will be, I think he’ll do fine,” Hanson said.
Hanson also argued that Biden’s team attempted to get the rules slanted in his favor, with his side receiving the rules they asked for from the CNN debate, but that they could end up working in Trump’s favor.
“Cutting the mic, I think, helps Trump in a weird way, so that he can’t interject,” Hanson said. He added that he believes the fact that both candidates have to stand for the full debate could help Trump.
Hanson played to recent conservative attacks on CNN debate moderator Jake Tapper, arguing that Tapper has been known to show “overt bias, or dislike of Trump.”
“I think actually, he’ll be on his best behavior, or if he is not, people will notice it and empathize with Trump,” Hanson said of Tapper.
The conservative commentator claimed that doing this debate before the Republican and Democratic conventions for the first time, when neither is officially the nominee of their party, is a “stress test” for Biden to see if he needs to be replaced in time for the Democrats’ August convention.
You can watch the full segment with Megyn Kelly and Victor David Hanson in the video at the top of this story.
