Not that this even needs to be said, but we all know why this is.
Trump needs his safe space. Trum needs Fox News moderators to throw him softball questions while trying to hang Gotcha questions around Harris’ neck. He needs the moderators to let him speak uninterrupted while cutting off Harris. He needs an audience full of cult members to tell him how great he is and how clever he is every time he speaks, acting like his own personal laugh track.
If he doesn’t get that reaction, he falls apart. He literally does not know what to do if there’s nobody there telling him how great he is. So he does what he always does when he’s not getting the reaction he wants. He doubles down on the hate. Repeatedly if necessary. And once he finds what works, he exploits it to ridiculous degrees. The problem is that doubling down on nothing still gets you nothing. So all Trump has is trying to double down again and again, wondering why he perpetually gets nothing. The NABJ interview is a shining example of this.
If he doesn’t have FOX news viewers cheering him on, if he doesn’t have the entire channel carefully editing what he says, if he’s asked anything other than pre-selected softball questions, then even he knows all he’s got left is having to stand on his word and defend his past actions, and even Trump knows there’s no chance in hell that’ll happen. It’s why he routinely disavows any references to his own former statements, even when he’s shown the footage of him saying it.
Trump knows he cannot win a legitimate debate. He can’t even win a debate with his thumb on the scale. He has to have his entire fat orange ass sitting on it eating a hamberder and drinking a cofeve to even have a chance. Why else do you think he wants it on his home turf, with his moderators, in front of his audience, on what is essentially his network? Because he knows that he has to have his fat orange ass on the scale, knows even that is probably not going to be enough, so he’s basically shouting to his base “All aboard!!” in hopes they’ll join him.
I almost wish Biden had held off stepping down until the start of the debate, it would be luscious to watch him fall apart over that, live on TV.
To take this further, imagine Harris walking out, tag teaming Joe to take his place, and then watching a wet stain dribble down the slacks of Mr. “I’ve known about the VP for years but I still purposely mispronounce her first name as if my own name was duhNALD Troomp.” Tantruming cowards gonna cowardly tantrum.
For those who haven’t seen it:
“Donald Trump is running scared and trying to back out of the debate he already agreed to and running straight to Fox News to bail him out,” Tyler said. “He needs to stop playing games and show up to the debate he already committed to on Sept 10. The vice president will be there one way or the other to take the opportunity to speak to a prime time national audience.”
Tyler said the Harris team would be “happy to discuss further debates after the one both campaigns have already agreed to.”
“Mr. Anytime, anywhere, anyplace should have no problem with that unless he’s too scared to show up on the 10th,” Tyler added.
“Felon Republican nominee refused any debate not held on one very specific network, known to fund republicans”
hmmmmmm
“Any time, anywhere”, except it has to be over there and at that particular time.
And if she says no to his particular conditions, he’ll try and use it to claim she’s the coward. Which is the whole point of this, he doesn’t want to debate anywhere, so he’s hoping she says no.
Similar to a lawyer telling a client to just repeat, “no comment,” the Harris team just needs to keep saying “He agreed to this debate and Kamala will be there. The Fox debate was only brought up after he reneged on his previous commitment. We will not be at Fox as it was never in the schedule. We can discuss a Fox entertainment debate after this previously scheduled debate takes place. Next question.”
Say nothing else and just repeat that ad nauseam.
Harris is going to eat him alive no matter the venue.
I think she is 1000x more intelligent and eloquent than he is, but a Fox News debate would be a massacre because she would be debating the entire channel, not Trump. They wouldn’t let it be a discussion. There are so many rhetorical cheats, fallacies, and subterfuges they could use and I guarantee you they would war game the show so hard there’s no chance she’d be able to say anything coherent without the moderator basically shouting her down or cutting her mic.
It would be like challenging Wayne Gretzky to a hockey match but when he arrives, the “hockey” match is actually a garbage eating contest and his opponent is a goat.
I’m on the fence on this. I hate Fox news, but Harris seems to me to be able to think quick on her feet, and can make her arguments succinctly so that even if Trump rambles on, and the Fox team cuts her mic, unless they just shut her mic off from beginning to end (which wouldn’t look good, even for them), she’d still make Trump look like the fool.
That said, I can’t think of a single person who wouldn’t be feeling the immense pressure in that situation, and it’d be very easy to lose your cool with that much shit piled against you. So I doubt she’ll take the bait and Trump will play it off as her being cowardly, but it’s a nothing burger, he’s just trying to distract from the fact they’ve got no game plan.
The Trump team is reeling on the back foot right now and are still looking for their footing. They’re about to find it, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be able to recoup from this. They really had no recourse for going up against anyone except Biden, which just goes to show how little foresight and how much arrogance their political strategists had.
I’ve got my criticisms of Harris, but she is a far better pick than Biden was, and I say if you smell blood in the water, that’s when you fucking go in for the kill. And in this case, since it’s Trump, I’d say it’s fine to kick the man while he’s down. He lost all right to civility after pulling that shit on January 6th.
