President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden are facing off on the debate stage during one of the most turbulent periods in modern American history. A viral pandemic has killed 200,000 Americans and pummeled the economy, racial justice protests continue in towns and cities, and vast fires wreak environmental disaster across the American West. Adding to the national sense of foreboding, Trump has refused to commit to a peaceful transition of power if he loses the election and is using his bully pulpit to sow distrust in the voting process and spread false allegations that voting by mail—a safe alternative for many during the pandemic—will lead to rampant voter fraud. (It won’t.)
There’s a lot to debate.
While the head-to-head is an opportunity for both candidates to convince Americans that they are the right person to lead the country through this tumultuous time, it’s also a moment for voters to see the two men’s styles set side by side, in stark relief. The President is trailing Biden in national polls, but the race is close in battleground states Trump would need to win to get to 270 electoral votes.
Trump will try to deflect questions about his taxes
Tonight’s debate comes on the heels of explosive revelations in the New York Times laying out long-awaited details about Trump’s personal finances that tarnish his image as a successful business mogul, including that he paid little to no federal taxes for most of the last two decades and that he has massive debts coming due soon.
Even if the debate moderator, Fox News’ Chris Wallace, doesn’t explicitly ask about the fairness of Trump’s tax avoidance, you can bet Biden will bring it up. Trump has dismissed the report as “totally fake news” and is likely to fall back on the same defenses he used in 2016: that he intends to release his financial details once they’re no longer under audit (the IRS has repeatedly said there’s nothing preventing him from doing so) and that paying less in taxes just makes him a smart businessman.
Trump will try to paint Biden as the standard bearer of an old order and make the case that only Trump can engineer an economic rebound from the pandemic. He’s repeatedly called Biden “sleepy” and led a conservative media push attacking Biden’s age (Biden is 77; Trump is 74) and implying he’s not mentally up to the job. There are few more transparent windows into mental acuity than a debate stage.
Biden won’t miss the chance to slam Trump on taxes — but he won’t linger long
For his part, Biden all but bought a billboard across from the debate site to headline what at least part of his strategy would be. Just ahead of the candidates’ arrivals on stage at the Cleveland Clinic, Biden’s campaign released tax returns for 2019, showing an almost $300,000 tax bill on combined Joe and Jill Biden adjusted gross income of $985,233. The disclosure is now the twenty-second year of tax returns made available to the public from Biden — and a clear taunt to Trump, who is notoriously thin-skinned when it comes to questions about his claims of wealth.
But Biden’s advisers are also keenly aware that the trio of chaotic through-lines to this election have had far greater effects on voters than the extent of Trump’s tax planning. Biden is expected to have his fun casting doubts on Trump’s legitimate success and telling voters they can’t trust someone who doesn’t pay his fair share, but he’s not going to linger. After all, the debate team is very familiar with how Hillary Clinton tried to make Trump’s tax dodges an issue in 2016 and then-candidate Trump’s reply of so what? inoculate him.
More pressing? The coronavirus death toll has now topped 200,000 Americans and Biden’s team has seen that stunning reality does far more to help their chances than anything that can be said about tax loopholes.
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