President Joe Biden's reelection campaign miscalculated by challenging Donald Trump to two debates, believing the former president would not accept on their terms, Stephen Miller, a former senior adviser in the Trump administration, told Newsmax on Wednesday.
But Trump did accept to debate Biden on June 27 on CNN and Sept. 10 on ABC, even accepting certain demands by Biden's campaign, such as having no audience, no involvement of the Commission on Presidential Debates, no third-party candidate such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and for the moderator to cut off Trump's microphone if he interrupts Biden out of turn.
"Clearly, the Biden campaign believed that if they got CNN to offer the first debate, they imagined that Donald Trump wouldn't accept,"Miller, president of America First Legal, told "Eric Bolling The Balance,""which, of course as President Trump said, he will debate 'anytime, anywhere, anyplace,' any set of rules because he knows he's going to wipe the floor with Joe Biden.
"This was a classic case: The Biden campaign miscalculated; President Trump accepted the debates immediately."
The Biden campaign folded after weeks of intense pressure from Trump and his campaign to debate anywhere and anytime, Miller said, conceding and saying Biden will debate Trump, but it must be on "radical leftists" CNN and ABC and on their terms.
"And Donald Trump says, all right, we will go into the lion's den, into the belly of the beast, and will debate you there, too,"Miller said. "It was a beautiful thing to see. This is going to be an incredible moment of revelation for the American people when they see the mastery that Donald Trump has of the issues, the skills, of the challenges and the crises of the day, compared to this decrepit failure that is our current president, Joe Biden."
Miller said Biden's campaign wanted Trump to concede to so many of its demands to debate because "Joe Biden is a terrified old man; a decrepit, decomposing, frail old man."
Nate Silver of the political website FiveThirtyEight posted on X that Biden's campaign wanted these early dates because it shows he can't be seen as ducking debates, yet he's not confident he will win.
"They want to move it up earlier so that if Joe Biden catastrophically bombs, that it will be a more distant memory,"Miller said. "But I would also make the point that they've fallen right into President Trump's trap that he set for them because not only again did he call their bluff and immediately accept these debates hosted by radical leftists ... but then Trump came back and he said, I'm going to now ask for more debates, again anytime, anyplace, and I want three debates. I want four debates. I want five debates.
"What's going to happen here is Joe Biden is going to lose two debates, and then he's going to have to explain to the American people why he refuses to debate the third time or a fourth time or a fifth time. So it will make him look what he is, which is weak and afraid."
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Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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