President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump have sparred for months on the marketing campaign path, in interviews with reporters and thru paid commercials, creating phantom likenesses of one another to thrash and tear down.
On Thursday, they are going to confront one another at a CNN debate in Atlanta, their first face-to-face assembly since their final onstage conflict in 2020 and since Mr. Trump tried to overturn Mr. Biden’s subsequent victory on the polls. The occasion will give each of them a wealthy alternative to deploy their assault strains and coverage arguments earlier than a nationwide viewers.
Right here’s what we learn about how every man will attempt to acquire the higher hand.
Trump’s major strains of assault
Since he emerged because the presumptive Republican nominee, Mr. Trump and his marketing campaign have centered on attacking Mr. Biden over immigration and the economic system, which polls have discovered to be the highest considerations for a lot of voters.
Immigration
As he did throughout his political rise in 2016, Mr. Trump has made immigration a central focus of his marketing campaign. He’s all however assured responsible Mr. Biden for a surge in unlawful border crossings, calling the president’s insurance policies overly permissive.
Mr. Trump claims that Mr. Biden’s strategy to immigration has fueled violent crime — regardless that broader statistics don’t bear that out — by citing a number of high-profile legal instances that the authorities say concerned immigrants in the USA illegally.
And as he stokes worry round immigration and tries to push the problem to the middle of the election, Mr. Trump has falsely solid all these crossing the border as violent criminals or mentally unwell. (Households with youngsters make up about 40 p.c of all migrants who’ve entered the USA this yr.)
Seeking to chip away on the coalition that elected Mr. Biden, Mr. Trump has claimed with out proof that individuals within the nation illegally are taking the roles of working-class Black and Hispanic voters, a scenario he blames Mr. Biden for.
Mr. Trump can be more likely to assault Mr. Biden’s current govt order on immigration, which prevents migrants from in search of asylum on the southern border when crossings surge. Mr. Trump has argued that the order will nonetheless encourage migrants to enter the nation, and that it’s too little, too late. He says, after all, that Mr. Biden wants to revive the strict border insurance policies of the Trump presidency.
Biden’s rebuttal: With Republican assist, Mr. Biden secured a long-sought border deal in Congress in February. However Mr. Trump rapidly advised his allies to torpedo the settlement, saying it will be poor politics to take immigration off the desk. That gave Mr. Biden another person responsible for the border disaster.
“The American persons are going to know why it failed,” the president mentioned on the time, a theme he may play up on the debate. He has additionally condemned Mr. Trump for saying that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of the nation, a phrase that echoes the language of Adolf Hitler.
The economic system and price of dwelling
Mr. Trump and his marketing campaign have persistently tried to harness destructive emotions in regards to the economic system as a approach of attacking Mr. Biden. In speeches, Mr. Trump ceaselessly accuses the president of doing little to deal with elevated meals and housing prices. And he blames the Biden administration’s insurance policies for contributing to inflation, arguing that elevated authorities spending has led prices to skyrocket.
Extra just lately, Mr. Trump has tried to hyperlink his message on immigration to the economic system, arguing that Mr. Biden’s dealing with of the surge of migrants has pushed up prices, an assertion he makes with out citing clear proof.
To bolster his argument, Mr. Trump ceaselessly mentions the prices of gasoline and vitality, which he claims had been considerably decrease throughout his administration and which he guarantees to deal with by rising oil drilling.
He has ceaselessly requested voters whether or not they had been higher off throughout his administration, pointing to the rising economic system he inherited and that continued to develop whereas he was in workplace. However Mr. Trump usually ignores the affect the coronavirus pandemic had on the American economic system within the final yr of his presidency. Some economists say these results had been intensified by choices he made that prioritized short-term financial progress over long-term stability.
Biden’s rebuttal: Mr. Biden returned to his hometown, Scranton, Pa., this yr to emphasise his working-class roots and accuse Mr. Trump of being a puppet of plutocrats quite than a pal to regular folks.
On the debate, the president is more likely to undertake an identical “Essential Road vs. Wall Road” strategy, and to attempt to deflect Mr. Trump’s criticisms by highlighting his administration’s efforts to chop client prices on issues like prescribed drugs, financial institution charges and airline journey.
One large query for Trump: How a lot will he assault Biden’s psychological and bodily health?
On the marketing campaign path, Mr. Trump mocks Mr. Biden’s bodily attributes, imitates his gait and speech, and argues that his rival shouldn’t be mentally match to be president. Such assaults are greeted with raucous laughter and cheers at Trump rallies.
Mr. Trump is more likely to once more contend that Mr. Biden shouldn’t be match to function president. However with Mr. Biden on the stage subsequent to him, it’s unclear how forceful Mr. Trump could also be, or whether or not he’ll draw on the cartoonish impressions favored by his supporters. And any consideration drawn to Mr. Biden’s slips may backfire if Mr. Trump makes gaffes of his personal, as he has completed repeatedly.
Biden’s major strains of assault
Mr. Biden and his marketing campaign have signaled early and infrequently that they plan to hammer Mr. Trump on abortion and democracy, two points on which polls present that voters place extra religion within the president than his predecessor.
Abortion rights
Democrats have honed a easy message on abortion: “Donald Trump did this.” And it doesn’t simply apply to the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Since that momentous Supreme Courtroom determination in 2022, Mr. Biden and his allies have assailed Mr. Trump over abortion bans in Arizona and Florida, a courtroom ruling in Alabama that imperiled using in vitro fertilization, and efforts to restrict entry to contraception.
“Let’s be clear. There’s one particular person chargeable for this nightmare, and he’s acknowledged it and he brags about it: Donald Trump,” Mr. Biden mentioned at a marketing campaign occasion in Florida shortly earlier than a six-week abortion ban went into impact there.
Defending abortion entry has robust attraction throughout social gathering strains, as profitable referendum efforts in purple states have proven. And on the marketing campaign path, Mr. Biden has made a broader argument that Mr. Trump is in search of to take the nation backward on equality for ladies, together with by permitting state governments to observe their pregnancies and prosecute them for having abortions.
Trump’s rebuttal: After sending blended alerts for months, Mr. Trump mentioned in April that he believed abortion rights needs to be left as much as the states and that he wouldn’t signal a federal ban if Congress put one earlier than him. He falsely insists that the majority People had been completely happy to go away abortion restrictions to the states, at the same time as he has criticized stringent abortion bans. And he has ducked questions on mifepristone, a extensively used drug in treatment abortions.
Democracy
Few subjects make Mr. Biden extra animated than the menace he believes that Mr. Trump poses to American democracy.
The president has delivered speeches and his marketing campaign has produced advertisements devoted to the problem. He has attacked Mr. Trump for his position within the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, highlighted feedback the previous president made that he wouldn’t be a dictator “apart from Day 1,” and accused him of encouraging political violence.
“People, what’s in danger in 2024 are our freedoms, our very democracy,” Mr. Biden mentioned in Detroit final month. “And that’s not hyperbole.”
On a number of events, the president has almost cursed Mr. Trump by identify or challenged him to a struggle when discussing the vicious assault on Paul Pelosi, the husband of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Trump’s rebuttal: Mr. Trump ceaselessly argues that Mr. Biden talks about democracy with the intention to distract People from his insurance policies. He then factors the finger at Mr. Biden as a much bigger menace to democracy, citing his rivalry — made with out proof — that the president orchestrated the 4 legal instances towards him and is weaponizing the Justice Division to prosecute and persecute him.
One large query for Biden: Will he name Trump a ‘convicted felon’?
Mr. Biden has usually been restrained when speaking about Mr. Trump’s responsible verdict in his Manhattan hush-money case. Some Democrats have urged him to be extra aggressive and loudly name out his opponent as a “convicted felon.”
Onstage in Atlanta, he can have the chance to focus on the conviction, though Mr. Trump is nearly sure to repeat his false allegation that the president was behind the case.
