0:00

Vote and let your senators know how strong

0:02

you feel. Vote now.

0:06

Four years ago, the first

0:08

debate between then-candidate Joe Biden

0:10

and then-President Donald Trump featured

0:12

shouting, interruptions and insults. The

0:15

question is, the question is, radical left.

0:17

Will you shut up, man? Listen, who

0:19

is on your list? And

0:21

while this debate is a rematch, it

0:24

will look and feel a lot different

0:26

from 2020. CNN

0:28

is hosting the debate and has

0:30

said it will mute the participants'

0:32

microphones to prevent crosstalk. And

0:35

there won't be an audience. We know

0:37

Trump loves an audience and loves a

0:39

crowd. NPR's Asma Khalid spoke about the

0:41

debate on NPR's Politics Podcast. I think

0:43

the dynamics are a bit different this

0:46

time around, in major part

0:48

because it is Joe Biden, not Donald

0:50

Trump, who's the sitting president in the

0:52

Oval Office. This will be

0:54

the first debate for either candidate in this

0:56

campaign season. Trump skipped the

0:59

Republican primary debates. And

1:01

it will also be the first debate

1:03

in modern history, where one of the

1:05

contenders is a convicted felon. Consider

1:08

this. For a lot of

1:10

voters, the idea of a Trump-Biden

1:12

rematch is not generating much excitement.

1:15

But with the candidates nearly even in the

1:17

latest polls and undecided voters on the line,

1:20

the debate could offer opportunities

1:22

and risks. Coming

1:25

up, we speak with two political strategists about

1:27

what to expect. From

1:33

NPR, I'm Wana Summers. This

1:37

message comes from NPR sponsors Stearns &

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ahs.com/contracts. This

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2:41

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2:43

Listen to campaign managers wherever you

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get your podcasts. It's

2:54

considered this from NPR. President

2:56

Biden and former President Donald Trump will

2:59

face off in Atlanta for their first

3:01

debate in this election season. With

3:04

the contestants virtually tied in the

3:06

polls, the debate could be a

3:08

chance to establish a decisive lead.

3:10

But even with a close race,

3:12

there's been a lack of enthusiasm

3:15

for either candidate among voters. We

3:17

talked to Republican strategist Doug High

3:20

and Democratic strategist Faz Shakir, and

3:23

I started off by asking Faz Shakir

3:25

if he thought the debate performance might

3:27

re-energize voters. I certainly think

3:29

there is an opportunity to energize people in

3:31

the negative in terms

3:33

of understanding why your opponent

3:37

is someone who shouldn't

3:39

be the next president of the United

3:41

States, and particularly in terms of Trump

3:43

for Biden's perspective to remind people of

3:45

his record, the things that they abhor

3:48

about him's character in office, the chaos,

3:50

gassing, and protesters, rubber bullets, all kinds

3:52

of things like that that are easily

3:54

forgotten over time. So that's

3:56

certainly one thing you can do

3:58

in the debate. The challenge for him was- obviously

4:01

to also tell a positive narrative story of what

4:03

you want to accomplish in the next four years

4:05

without getting bogged down too much and relitigating what

4:07

has happened over the course of his presidency because

4:10

ultimately, presidential elections are about the

4:12

future. Nobody expects the

4:14

debate to be a positive, happy experience. And

4:16

part of that is just the direction of

4:18

the country and where voters feel the country's

4:20

moving. The other part is

4:22

what we've seen in recent history. So we see

4:24

this 25% of voters that

4:27

say that they're not happy with either

4:29

of these choices. And Democrats and Republicans

4:31

on their bases are enthusiastic to some

4:33

extent about their pick. They're

4:35

also enthusiastic against the opponent. But those

4:37

25% of voters who may be the

4:39

deciders, especially in swing states, they're saying

4:41

very loudly, I don't want to see

4:44

this movie again. And so Donald

4:46

Trump and Joe Biden are essentially going to try

4:48

and say, yeah, this is the part of the

4:50

movie that you don't want to see again. And

4:53

what we know with Trump is that's not

4:56

about policy per se. Donald Trump likes

4:58

to throw sand in his opponent's eyes, and he

5:00

does that very effectively. And

5:02

that's where we're going to have to see

5:04

because we do not know what direction does

5:06

Trump use that in. There is

5:08

so much about this debate that's going to look different than all

5:10

of us are used to. I mean, it's

5:12

being put on by a television network, CNN,

5:15

rather than the Commission for Presidential Debates. There

5:17

will be no live audience in the Atlanta

5:19

studio. Each candidate's microphone will be

5:21

muted when it is not his turn to speak.

5:23

Also, I will just point out that it is the

5:26

month of June, so this debate is quite early in

5:28

the election cycle. How significant for either of you is

5:30

the change in the format? Does it actually matter? Well,

5:32

I love it. And quite often

5:35

in the past eight years, crowds

5:38

have sort of taken over debates, and they've become

5:40

mini rallies. And I think a lot gets lost

5:42

in that process. So when I first

5:44

heard that there was going to be no audience, I

5:46

could not have been happier. What impact

5:49

this has, I don't think we know. We

5:51

hear a lot that Donald Trump thrives off

5:53

of a crowd. Well, that's true. But

5:56

also The Apprentice was filmed in a studio. And yes,

5:58

it was edited and so forth. He's

6:00

very comfortable in front of a camera and as we

6:02

saw with the State of the Union, Joe

6:04

Biden can interact with a

6:07

crowd as well. So I'm not sure the

6:10

impact that this has. The muted microphone

6:12

may make it tougher for Trump to try and do

6:14

some of his distraction antics, but we

6:16

know that he'll still try and do that. And

6:18

having watched Donald Trump now for years, we know

6:20

that just because you turn off his microphone, they

6:23

have a pad of paper in front of them.

6:25

Does he throw a paper airplane at Joe Biden to

6:27

distract him? These are the kinds of things that Donald

6:29

Trump could do. And these

6:32

rule changes, positive though that they may be,

6:34

we just don't know what the impact is yet. Faz,

6:37

I want to ask you about this because I'm remembering back

6:39

in the 2020 presidential primary when

6:41

COVID upended literally everything, including the presidential

6:43

race, that debate that Joe Biden and

6:45

Bernie Sanders had at CNN studios down

6:47

the street here in Washington where

6:49

they didn't have an audience. It didn't look anything like that. And I'm

6:51

curious, I want to get your take on this. That

6:54

was a completely different format too. Did you do

6:56

anything differently to prepare your candidate? Yes.

6:59

You assume that the moderator in

7:01

those instances has a lot more

7:03

power to drive a conversation because you're

7:06

really talking among three people. And

7:08

the moderator is deciding whether to

7:10

allow a back and forth to occur

7:12

between the candidates or to institute

7:14

really regimented, hey, hold on, it's

7:16

not your turn. You're going to speak.

7:19

And I think that that's what we were

7:21

prepared. We wanted Bernie Sanders

7:23

and Joe Biden to be engaged in a back

7:25

and forth and knew we'd be having to deal

7:27

with a moderator who's going to choose at various

7:29

points and turns whether to step in and stop

7:32

it or whether to allow it to continue. And

7:34

I think that's the same issue that's going to

7:36

face Jake Tapper and Dana Bash here, particularly with

7:38

Trump is much more, you're dealing

7:40

with an actor who in

7:42

many cases is in operating in good faith.

7:45

And so you're dealing with some instances where

7:47

he is going to want to control the

7:49

time and the and what

7:51

he's talking about. And the

7:53

temptation of so many people who

7:56

have debated Donald Trump is to

7:58

litigate and decide. do

8:00

I want to fact check him in real

8:02

time? And that's an ever present

8:05

kind of problem and concern for a moderator

8:07

and for Joe Biden. Campaigns, their job is

8:09

to talk about what they want to talk

8:11

about and make their opponent talk about what

8:13

they want to talk about. And

8:16

Donald Trump has that ability more

8:18

than anybody else to flip that on its head. And

8:21

that's the temptation that regardless of

8:23

whether you're Biden or in past

8:25

debates, the Republicans who

8:27

were running against Trump in 2016, they

8:30

all fell into that trap. It's a very hard

8:32

thing to get out of because Donald Trump can

8:34

be quicksand in a debate like this.

8:36

And you want to stay as far away from that

8:38

as you can. I want to get into some of

8:40

the big issues that seem to be motivating voters opinions

8:42

this cycle and at the top of mind for me

8:44

at least are inflation, immigration and abortion. And I want

8:46

to start with that last one, abortion, because

8:49

it's been such a huge rallying point for Democrats

8:51

who have really tried to make Trump own the

8:53

overturning of Roe v. Wade, abortion bans in states

8:55

across the country. And we've heard President Biden

8:57

argue that Trump is actually taking this country backwards

9:00

when it comes to equality for women. Doug,

9:02

I want to put this one to you. How

9:04

do you think former President Trump can effectively

9:06

rebut those concerns if he can? Well,

9:08

he's trying to right now. He talks

9:10

about, I basically

9:12

put the judges in place to overturn Roe,

9:15

but now this should be decided by the

9:17

states on a state by state basis. And

9:19

that's what Republicans always believed in. Essentially,

9:21

Donald Trump is trying to use

9:23

nuance in this debate. And

9:25

Donald Trump isn't somebody who does nuance very

9:28

often, which means it's going to be difficult

9:30

for him to pull off. And for Biden,

9:32

this is the only issue where he's on

9:34

offense. If you look at polling on issues,

9:36

forget the national polls of who's up a

9:39

point or two on any given week.

9:41

If you draw down on issues, other

9:44

than abortion, Biden is

9:46

underwater on everything, on

9:48

crime, on inflation, on

9:50

the border, on healthcare,

9:52

on education. This is

9:54

Biden's only place to be on offense. And I

9:56

expect that he'll do that often and as well

9:59

as he can. I want to

10:01

move to another topic, and that's the issue of

10:03

immigration, which former President Trump has really made a

10:05

key focus of his campaign, really since his political

10:07

rise began back in 2016. In

10:10

recent days, we have heard him blame President

10:12

Biden for a surge in illegal border crossings.

10:14

He has argued that Biden's policies are too

10:17

lax and that Biden's approach has fueled violent

10:19

crime. I will just note here that immigrants

10:21

do not commit crime at higher rates than

10:23

U.S. citizens. Multiple credible

10:25

studies have said that. As to you, how

10:27

do you think President Biden on the debate

10:29

stage might seek to use this issue, which

10:31

many see as a liability for

10:34

him, to his advantage? Yeah,

10:36

I also tend to think that immigration is not

10:40

being considered appropriately by a lot of

10:42

people on the left who see

10:44

it largely in the crime lens,

10:46

because I think it's also bled

10:48

over pretty deeply into an economic

10:50

issue. Generally, people

10:52

concerned in seeing cities that

10:55

undoubtedly have become more difficult to manage. So

10:57

I think what often ends up being missed

10:59

in the immigration debate is it brings a

11:01

lot of different threads together for people's lives.

11:03

And to think about it simply in the

11:05

terms of crime would be not meeting, I

11:08

think, voters where they're at. I want to

11:10

talk more about the economy because one of

11:12

President Biden's big hurdles seems to be that

11:14

there is this really big disconnect around the

11:16

economy. The economy is improving, but many people

11:18

— and I talk to a lot of

11:20

these voters when I'm out on the campaign

11:22

trail — they perceive that the economy is

11:24

still doing quite badly. I'll throw this out

11:26

there to both of you. How

11:29

do you think that President Biden can make this issue

11:31

a winning one for him, given that as

11:33

the person in the White House, his

11:35

administration is being held responsible for

11:37

the state of the economy and the way that

11:39

people perceive it? What Biden does in response is

11:42

what we've seen a lot of a litany

11:44

of, I passed this bill and that bill

11:46

and I have a great legislative track record.

11:49

The American people do not care about Joe

11:51

Biden's legislative track record. They care about going

11:53

to the grocery store and what

11:55

it costs. They care about the fact that

11:57

going to a fast food restaurant is now

12:00

viewed by an increasing Americans as a luxury.

12:02

He has to understand that voters are feeling

12:04

pain right now. And if he can't demonstrate

12:07

and empathize on that issue and just

12:09

goes through a litany of his accomplishments,

12:11

he loses them. To

12:14

add on to what Doug is saying, I would

12:16

say, what is the story I want to tell

12:18

Americans about this economy? That's the challenge for Joe

12:20

Biden. What I would proffer is that where

12:22

he's fighting Donald Trump on political

12:26

authoritarianism, we don't want authoritarians in charge

12:28

of our political system who write the

12:30

rules and discount the votes of regular

12:32

people. That's also what I'm fighting for

12:34

on the economy. I want economic democracy,

12:36

which means that people have power, not

12:39

authoritarians of our economy. That's why I

12:41

fight for workplace democracy, which is I

12:43

go on the picket lines and I

12:45

stand with workers. I fight for non-compete

12:47

bans so that workers are free to

12:49

move and demand better wages. That's a

12:51

story, right? That's bonding all of this

12:53

together so that people understand all of

12:55

these scatter plot points that you've given me. Doug,

12:58

I will ask you to take us to the

13:00

debate briefly. What would a good performance for former

13:02

President Donald Trump look like? One

13:04

where he prosecutes the case on

13:07

why Biden would be wrong for the next

13:09

four years. That really ties down to two

13:11

issues. That's costs and prices,

13:14

not inflation. Inflation is a statistic that

13:16

people in Washington, D.C. use and then

13:18

they use words like transitory. Americans

13:21

buy things and they cost too much and

13:23

those prices aren't going down. That's one. Number

13:25

two is the issue with the border. For

13:27

Trump, the benefit that he has here is

13:29

that these are simple things for him to

13:31

talk about. They're complex issues, but he can

13:35

talk about them simply. That

13:37

same question to you, but for President Joe Biden, what

13:39

would make a good night for him? He

13:41

both sets the narrative very, very early on

13:43

in the first few minutes. Here's the top

13:46

one or two things I want to remind

13:48

you about why we don't want Donald Trump

13:50

as president, whether he's out for revenge or

13:52

he's a chaos agent or he's an extreme

13:54

right wing, whatever. You can pick your poison,

13:56

decide. This is what I want to say

13:58

to everybody about Donald Trump. Over the

14:00

course of that night, you're going to see, you're going

14:02

to be reminded of it. And

14:04

in addition to that, the next four years,

14:06

we're going to keep building on this progress. Our job's not

14:09

done here. I didn't come here to tell you it's accomplished.

14:11

I'm telling you I'm involved in a project to work on

14:13

your behalf. And over the course of this evening, I'm going

14:15

to tell you what is left to

14:17

do. I've done some stuff, but I've got

14:19

more to do. That's why I need another

14:21

four years. What I imagine is

14:24

that you're hitting points very early on

14:26

that just kind of be constantly

14:28

affirmed again and again and

14:31

again as the night goes on, whether you're talking about

14:33

abortion, whether you're talking about immigration, whether you're talking about

14:35

the economy, as we've discussed here, he can just hit

14:37

it early and repeatedly. Last

14:40

thing to both of you. Can either of

14:42

you envision a scenario in which what happens

14:44

at this first debate in Atlanta can fundamentally

14:46

change the outcome of the election in November?

14:49

Absolutely, but only in the negative. If

14:52

Biden has a home run or Trump has a

14:54

home run, the game doesn't change, especially

14:57

with Biden, if there is a moment

14:59

of stumble, that is going to cause those

15:01

25% of voters to think

15:03

really hard about whether or not he's up to the job

15:05

again. And Democrats will tell you

15:07

that that's an unfair thing, but

15:09

that's where those voters are. Yeah, and

15:11

I think so much

15:14

of what Joe Biden has been caricatured at

15:16

this point has been based off of clips

15:18

and the virality of various things here and

15:20

there. And people haven't

15:22

really quite frankly had an opportunity to see him.

15:24

Outside of State of the Union, there

15:26

aren't many big moments. Donald Trump is more

15:29

ever present as he often is in people's

15:31

feeds and inboxes and TV

15:34

sets. Whereas he's

15:36

been on trial and such. We've seen Donald Trump, we

15:38

haven't seen Joe Biden. And this is one of the

15:40

few times where he'll have a command of a large

15:42

national audience to say, I can

15:44

both show you in style and effect who

15:47

I am, remind you of what you liked

15:49

about me. When I was talking about restoring

15:51

the soul of America, it wasn't just a

15:53

policy agenda, it was also just the decency

15:55

and the compassion, the character that he brings

15:57

to office. And I do think that that's

15:59

why I operate. with positivity and optimism

16:02

as a Democrat who supports Biden about this election. Because

16:04

at the end of the day, as

16:06

long as he hits his benchmarks of reminding

16:09

people who he is and what he is,

16:11

then we're fine. People are going to be

16:13

there. But to Doug's point, if somehow people

16:15

start to believe that he's different than

16:17

what he was four years ago, he's different than

16:19

what I thought of him for the past 40

16:21

years in public service, yeah, then

16:23

that's a concern. Another reason why

16:26

this debate is really important is

16:28

not that it's the first one, but it is potentially the

16:30

only one. Yes, there's supposed

16:32

to be an ABC debate later

16:35

this year, but we don't really know that that's going to

16:37

happen. Either one of these two

16:39

could decide, I'm not doing this again, for

16:41

very legitimate reasons. So this may be the

16:43

only look that voters have. That

16:46

was former Republican National Committee Communications Director

16:48

Doug High and Faz Shakir, Chief Political

16:50

Advisor to Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

16:52

Thanks to both of you for joining

16:54

us. Thank you. This

16:57

episode was produced by Mark Rivers.

16:59

It was edited by Jeanette Woods.

17:01

Our executive producer is Sami Yennigan.

17:04

And one more thing before we go.

17:06

You can now enjoy the Consider This

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