If Donald Trump And Joe Biden As he prepares to face off on the debate stage, Trump has previewed a line of attack against his Democratic opponent in a long-running feud over the former president’s efforts to tie Biden to his son’s foreign business dealings.
Hunter BidenThe Republican fight has been heightened in recent weeks by his felony conviction in a firearms trial — a proceeding that saw Republicans take a victory lap as government witnesses confirmed the authenticity of his abandoned laptop, the materials of which have fueled GOP claims that he spent years in prison profiting from his proximity to his father.
Now Biden and Trump are set to face off for the first time since 2020 in a debate hosted by CNN at CNN’s studio in Atlanta. Trump has indicated he will repeat the line of attack.
“It wasn’t Russian disinformation. It was a fabricated story for the purpose of election interference,” Trump recently said at a conservative conference. “I guess we’ll talk about that during the debate.”
There will be no in-person audience for the 90-minute debate, a dynamic that threatens to upset expectations.
“It tells you indirectly what’s going on, with applause or not,” Trump said in an interview with the Washington Examiner. He acknowledged that he interrupted Biden too often during the first debate against him in September 2020 and said he learned from the experience.
Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said there is a ready-made opportunity Thursday for the moderators to show a level playing field for Trump.
“If CNN wants to prove they are fair and balanced, they should ask Joe Biden why he lied about the existence of Hunter Biden’s laptop on the debate stage four years ago in 2020,” Leavitt told NBC News.
In the October 2020 general election debate, after Trump mentioned the laptop, Biden responded that it was a “Russian plan.”
Biden is preparing to face several possible Trumps on Thursday, including a Trump full of complaints and a version that employs a more disciplined message, with Biden’s advisers sifting through recent interviews to identify his trigger points.
Trump has shied away from attacking Hunter Biden over his addiction struggles, a stance that some say lends itself to extending an olive branch to the former president’s son. A Trump ally suggested he would be wise to offer a commutation of Hunter Biden’s sentence if he wins.
There are indications that Trump has a softer view of Hunter Biden than his father, whom Trump allies expect to resign after Trump’s conviction on charges related to the payment of hush money.
“Trump does not view Hunter Biden’s struggles with addiction as a target,” a former senior Trump administration official said. “The hostility is directed at Joe Biden, and there is a sense that Hunter wouldn’t be in that position if it weren’t for his father.”
At Camp David, Maryland, Biden has been preparing for how the debate might unfold. That includes the idea that Trump could raise the subject of Hunter Biden and his legal issues. Meanwhile, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, a top vice presidential candidate, has challenged CNN to ask questions about the laptop, Trump’s Political Action Committee has suggested potential lines of inquiry for the moderators, and Trump’s own Truth Social appears to be posts keep getting bigger. the possibility that he will mention the topic, said a source familiar with debate preparations and discussions.
But Biden’s advisers don’t think it will definitively come up in the debate, or that it will be a major focus if it does, and aides have been monitoring Trump’s public comments, suggesting he might change his tone can soften.
There’s a chance Trump will sidestep the issue altogether. While Hunter Biden’s recent trial on gun charges put his spiral into drugs under a microscope, Trump has shied away from attacking him for his addiction. Instead, he spoke at length about his own brother’s struggle with alcoholism in an interview with Sean Hannity as Biden’s trial was underway.
“You have sympathy for addiction — I think most Americans do,” Hannity said before trying to focus the interview on what he called the “bigger issues surrounding the Biden family.”
Trump intervened. “Excuse me,” he said. “Look, I feel really bad for them in terms of the addiction part of what they have now because I understand the addiction world. …Honestly, it would be nice if people did certain things and lived a certain way, but you can’t do that. They just can’t break it.”
Some Republican allies believe that talking about convicting Hunter Biden is bad politics for Trump because it risks putting a spotlight on his own legal issues. After a historic nearly two-month trial, he was convicted last month in New York City of falsifying corporate records to cover up a sex scandal that threatened to derail his 2016 campaign. His support among swing and independent voters appeared to waver in a recent Fox News poll, which showed Joe Biden taking a slight lead over Trump in a presidential contest. That lead is within the margin of error.
“It distracts us from the message,” said a Republican adviser with ties to Trump. “Who knows what will happen if Biden says something that sets him off? But the more we can talk about problems, the better off we will be.’
The adviser said this risks creating a tit-for-tat that is unlikely to provide any benefit to Trump.
“He’ll say you’re a convicted felon, and that will scare the independents; it will turn off those swing voters,” the adviser said.
Biden’s aides believe he had a “very strong” moment when Trump lashed out at Hunter Biden on the debate stage in 2020, a conversation they’d like to see repeated, a source familiar with the preparations and discussions said, noting that the president is eager to reiterate his support for his son’s recovery from addiction.
The source said Biden is willing to repeat what he has already said publicly: that he has no plans to pardon his son or commute his sentence.
Trump has now been advised to focus on the issues and is being prepared for policy.
“The more Donald Trump can talk about issues, about his accomplishments, and about his vision for the country, the better off we will be,” this person said.
A source familiar with some of the strategies discussed echoed that sentiment, saying, “Trump will focus on the issues people know and love.”
The danger, this person said, is ‘you bring up Hunter, [Biden] calls the New York court’s ruling,” indicating Trump’s recent conviction on charges related to the hush-money payment stemming from the 2016 campaign.
Republican leaders in the House of Representatives this month sent criminal referrals to the Justice Department recommending charges against Hunter and James Biden, the president’s brother. They alleged that statements they made before the Oversight and Judiciary committees implicated Joe Biden in what Republicans say was an effort to take advantage of him. family business activities while he was vice president. Biden has denied wrongdoing, and Republican Party investigations have yet to produce evidence showing his involvement.
But addressing the issue won’t matter unless Biden faces criminal sanctions.
“We proved this with Trump,” said a former Trump adviser. “The charges didn’t hurt until he was convicted.”
During the first debate in 2020, Biden said Trump’s claims that his son took payments from foreign business partners when Biden was vice president had been “completely discredited.” When the two faced off in a second debate weeks later, Trump returned to the issue, attempting to tie Biden to material allegedly taken from a computer that Hunter Biden left at a Delaware repair shop during his spiral into drug addiction.
“If this is true, then he’s a corrupt politician,” Trump said before turning to Biden. “So don’t tell me you’re an innocent baby.”
In response, Biden cited a letter from 51 former intelligence officials who claimed the files on the laptop had “the classic hallmarks” of Russian disinformation. It was an accusation that would anger Trump after he faced a special counsel investigation over his campaign’s ties to Russia and was considered a potential “puppet” of the Russian president by Hillary Clinton four years earlier Vladimir Putin.
The White House has denied that Biden had any involvement in his son’s business deals.
In addition, while Trump has continued to raise money following his conviction in New York, a former adviser said the frequent reminders could hurt his appeal to independent and swing voters.
“Right now he’s Richard Nixon, holding up two fingers and saying, ‘I’m not a crook,’” the former adviser said.
And there are even more pitfalls. When Trump attacks Biden’s age, “he is making the point that they are the same age,” the ally said.
Another source familiar with Trump’s plans said: “I told him to stay away. But no one tells Donald what to do.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
