The stage is set for the first presidential debate of 2024 between former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden in Atlanta on Thursday.
And while it remains to be seen what the debate has in store, there are several key themes and storylines to watch out for heading into the evening, ranging from the competition between the candidates for blue-collar workers, Biden’s approach to the Israel-Hamas war, how the moderators treat Trump given a history of bias, and if Biden puts his campaign lies into action.
Battle for Blue Collar Workers
The presidential campaign thus far has featured an ongoing battle between Trump and Biden for union workers and endorsements from union leaders.
While unions were for decades a lock to be part of the Democrat coalition, Trump’s emergence onto the political scene in 2015 shifted the landscape, as he won in Rust Belt states that had long voted blue in presidential elections, like Michigan and Wisconsin, and led the charge in solidifying Ohio’s status as a red state.
Earlier this year, United Auto Worker President Shawn Fein endorsed Biden despite a lack of support among his members and Biden’s green electric vehicle agenda.
United Auto Workers members march through downtown Detroit, Friday, Sept. 15, 2023. The UAW is conducting a strike against Ford, Stellantis and General Motors. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
“Look, let me be clear about this. A great majority of our members will not vote for President Biden. Yes, some will. But that’s the reality of this,” Fain admitted to Fox News’s Neil Cavuto immediately after the endorsement.
Trump has been highly critical of Biden’s electric vehicle agenda, which includes a regulation to phase out gas-powered vehicles, saying it will lead to no cars being built in the United States. He has also tabbed Biden’s EV mandate as a “radical plan to kill Michigan’s economy” and vows to repeal it if elected.
The men are also competing for an endorsement from Teamsters. The New York Times reported that the union’s president, Sean O’Brien, has requested to speak at both parties’ conventions. The Teamsters endorsement has gone back decades to Democrats, meaning this is a positive sign for Trump that O’Brien wants a platform at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
International Brotherhood of Teamsters president Sean O’Brien speaks after meeting with Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
With the Rust Belt states like Michigan expected to have so much influence in the outcome of the election and Trump’s efforts to expand the universe of battleground states to include traditionally blue ones, it is possible, even likely, to see the battle for blue-collar workers materialize on the debate stage.
How Biden Approaches Israel-Hamas War
Another theme to look out for is how Biden approaches the topic of the Israel and Hamas war during the contest.
Dissatisfaction with Biden’s handling of the war is rampant on the left, with more than half a million Democrat primary voters casting variations of the “uncommitted” votes in Democrat primaries around the county in protest of his policies. The ballot option actually has delegates for the August convention.
FILE – Pro-Palestinian demonstrators march during a visit by President Joe Biden in Warren, Mich., Feb. 1, 2024. An “uncommitted” campaign protesting President Joe Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war is seeing success in other states after 100,000 Michigan voters chose the option in the Feb. 27 primary. Almost 263,000 voters in the five Super Tuesday states where “uncommitted” or similar options were available did the same.(AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File)
Biden had been strongly behind Israel until the movement, which started with the Listen to Michigan campaign, grew legs into other states, many of which happen to also be in the Rust Belt. And the margins either eclipsed or neared those that he won the 2020 election by.
The threat is that these voters will stay home in November barring a radical change in Biden’s policies. Biden seemed to respond to the anti-Biden movement days after the Wisconsin primary on April 2, when 48,812 voted uncommitted, more than double the 20,682 vote margin he won the state by in 2020.
On April 4, Biden demanded a ceasefire in the war while speaking with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. However, he went on to approve $26 billion in aid, including military aid, for Israel as part of a larger aid package headlined by Ukraine. Though he subsequently withheld aid and threatened to withhold more aid from Israel, the uncommitted movement persisted in places like Maryland.
Wounds between Biden and the pro-Palestinian electorate, especially Muslim and Arab-American voters, are deep, as documented by New York Times columnist Charles Blow, who caught up with leaders of these communities in Michigan, days ahead of the primary, where 100,000 voted “uncommitted.”
Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Michigan’s executive director Dawud Walid “said that for most Muslims, anything short of Biden ‘resurrecting 29,000 dead Palestinians like Jesus’ would mean that they will never vote for him again,” Blow wrote.
Palestinian-American Nihad Awad, who co-founded the organization, told Blow, “I don’t think he can continue to lead our country.”
“When I asked if there is anything Biden can do to change his mind, Awad said, ‘He can retire,’” the columnist reported.
Meanwhile, Trump allies have reportedly worked to make in-roads with Muslim and Arab-American voters.
Millions of left-leaning Americans, including Democrats on both sides of the issue, will closely scrutinize Biden’s remarks and answers about the war.
How the Moderators Treat Trump
A third area to watch on Thursday night is how CNN hosts Jake Tapper and Dana Bash treat Trump, given biased histories.
As Breitbart News’s Wendell Husebo reported Tuesday, Bash and Tapper “repeatedly showed nasty bias against former President Donald Trump during previous network remarks.”
The article chronicles 30 instances—15 by Tapper and 15 by Bash—where they attacked Trump with negative claims.
FILE – CNN anchors Jake Tapper, left, and Dana Bash, right, speaking to members of the audience before the start of the CNN Republican presidential debate in Des Moines, Iowa, Jan. 10, 2024. Joe Biden and Donald Trump won’t be alone at the debate Thursday, June 27. Moderators Bash and Tapper of CNN will be on camera, too, and there’s a lot on the line for their network as it fights for relevance in a changing media environment. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
Tapper, for example, described Trump’s presidency as a “disaster” and once declared Trump “did try to kill democracy once, and he’s going to try to do it again.” He also ran a segment about what Trump’s genitals allegedly look like, to name a few examples.
Bash has accused him of “race baiting,” and sexism. She also said a coronavirus briefing Trump gave was “propaganda” after he contradicted his CDC director, and she accused him of being anti-science, among other claims.
Of note, CNN will have a level of control and power over this debate that has not been seen in many years, as the New York Times reported:
For the first time in decades, a single television network will have sole discretion over the look, feel and cadence of a general-election presidential debate. Unlike in past years, when an independent, nonprofit commission oversaw the contests, CNN has picked the moderators, designed the set and will choose the camera angles that viewers see.
There will not be an audience, and both candidate’s microphones will be muted when it is not their time.
Biden’s Campaign Lies and Trump Hoaxes
Biden has often lied about his record and Trump’s policies on the campaign trail, and it is worth keeping an eye out for them.
One of the latest lies Biden has been peddling is that Trump wants a national abortion ban, which is entirely false. Biden, on Monday, for instance, took to X, writing, “A vote for Trump is a vote for a national abortion ban,” as Breitbart News reported in a fact check.
A vote for Trump is a vote for a national abortion ban.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) June 24, 2024
Trump has been clear on his position that abortion is a states issue, saying in a campaign video in April it is about “the will of the people.”
“My view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint, the states will determine by vote or legislation, or perhaps both, and whatever they decide, must be the law of the land,” Trump said.
Vice President Kamala Harris doubled down on the lie again on X Tuesday.
Trump would seek to ban abortion nationwide, with or without the help of Congress. @JoeBiden and I are fighting to restore the protections of Roe into federal law for women in every state.
The choice is clear.
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) June 25, 2024
“Trump would seek to ban abortion nationwide, with or without the help of Congress,” she falsely wrote.
Though it has been over a month since he last seemed to use it, Biden has also claimed that inflation was at nine percent when he became president. He first claimed on May 8 to CNN that it was nine percent when he “came into office,” but the Consumer Price Index for January 2021 was just 1.4 percent.
Biden repeated this claim days later with Yahoo Finance.
It is also worth watching for Biden references to any of the latest contrived hoaxes, especially the “Bloodbath Hoax” or the “Little Peanut Hoax.”
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