Don’t set the expectations too low for President Joe Biden in his upcoming debate with former President Donald Trump, one potential Trump running mate warns.
North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum worries that expectations from Republicans and Democrats will be far too low for the sitting president going into his debate on Thursday. June 27 (9 p.m. Eastern start time) on CNN.
Though Burgum supports Trump’s presidential campaign, he admitted that he thinks Biden can sometimes outperform expectations when it comes to public speaking.
“There has been a real effort on the Biden team to try to lower expectations, but I think we have to — look, the guy’s run for office more than a dozen times, he’s run for president four times, he’s been campaigning since President Nixon was in office,” Burgum, who is reportedly a potential Trump running mate, told CNN over the weekend. “This guy has got the ability. We’ve seen it. We’ve seen him in debate four years ago, we’ve seen him in the State of the Union this year, that when he needs to, he can step up.”
Burgum also told CNN that the network has a responsibility to ask Biden tough questions, including questions about his son Hunter Biden.
Voters typically felt Biden won the first debate against Trump in the 2020 presidential election cycle, according to FiveThirtyEight. Trump received widespread criticism for frequently interrupting Biden in that debate — something he reportedly vows he will not do in 2024.
“He has said to people multiple times that he knows that he interrupted too much in the first debate with Biden in 2020, and having just rewatched that debate recently, it’s really striking,” Maggie Haberman of The New York Times recently told CNN.
“I mean, we all talked about it at the time, but Biden could barely get a word in edgewise, and Biden was kind of smiling throughout as this was happening,” she added
The debate, which will take place at a CNN studio in Atlanta, Georgia, has several rules that are atypical for a presidential debate. It will have no audience; the candidates’ microphones will be muted — unless it’s their turn to speak; they cannot use props or pre-written notes; and they will only be given a pen, a pad of paper, and a bottle of water, according to The Associated Press.
Betting odds on the 2024 presidential race typically favor Trump over Biden; the bookmakers cumulatively give Trump a 51.8 precent chance of winning and Biden a 34.8 percent chance of winning, according to RealClearPolitics.
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