The first presidential date is just days away and much is being made of how both candidates – President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump – will handle the event.
Trump is entering the debate stage after a conviction in his New York business records trial and a fundraising windfall, while Biden is dealing with the fallout of his own son’s legal troubles and a series of strange moments on and off the campaign trail.
But is the 2024 election cycle actually going according to plan for the Democrats? On Monday’s show, Megyn was joined by Victor Davis Hanson, author of The End of Everything, to discuss where things stand ahead of Thursday and what Biden’s tactics might be.
Where Things Stand
As Megyn noted, the 2024 polls have remained largely unchanged in the wake of Trump’s guilty verdict, but it does appear as though he has ceded a bit of support among independent voters.
Democrats, meanwhile, wasted no time rolling out the “convicted felon” moniker for the presumptive GOP nominee. Biden has yet to call his opponent that in public, but he has referred Trump a convicted felon at several fundraising events.
Biden has been holed up at Camp David preparing for the CNN primetime showdown, but not before his startling behavior with world leaders at the G7 summit in Italy, a Juneteenth concert at the White House, and a glitzy Hollywood fundraiser.
Trump, for his part, is wisely trying to temper expectations about Biden’s performance after setting them too low in 2020. During an appearance on the All-In Podcast last week, the forty-fifth president called Biden a “worthy debater” who “destroyed Paul Ryan” in the 2012 vice presidential debate. “I assume he’s going to be somebody that will be a worthy debater,” he said. “I don’t want to underestimate him.”
All Part of the Plan?
With all of this in mind, Megyn wondered if – despite all the headlines to the contrary – the 2024 election is playing out the way the left wants it to. “I am fascinated to talk about what has happened in the polling since I was last on the air live two weeks ago because there has been some erosion for Trump with independents in the wake of that conviction,” she said. “And you can see the argument by the Dems that everything is going to plan.”
The “plan,” as she explained, acknowledges that Biden “is not the ideal” nominee and instead relies on the fact that “he beat Trump once before and he will beat him again by running on Trump’s personality as opposed to his own accomplishments.” As a result, Biden’s strategy for the debate will simply be to get under Trump’s skin. Megyn believes that, in Democrats’ minds, “all [Biden] really needs to do Thursday is irritate Trump” and “just keep poking him.”
Trump’s goal, in Megyn’s view, “is to try to maintain some sense of dignity and strength but not pettiness,” which could prove challenging depending on Biden’s line of attack. “If Joe Biden just keeps needling him and Trump has some sort of a nasty meltdown that causes ‘interrupting Trump’ [from 2020] to come back,” she said the inroads the GOP hopeful has been making with suburban women and other key voting demos could be jeopardized.
While Hanson wasn’t sure if it will ultimately matter at the ballot box in November, he agreed that the left’s talking points will be on full display Thursday night. “I think he’ll call him a convicted felon,” he concluded. “It will be January 6, abortion, destroying democracy, you’re a felon, and all that.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Hanson by tuning in to episode 819 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.