Trump, Biden square off tonight
Supreme Court vacancy likely to inflame debate
President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, were already set to fight when they share a stage tonight in Cleveland, but the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg means things may get tenser even faster.
Moderated by Fox News’ Chris Wallace, the 90-minute debate will feature segments on the Supreme Court, the coronavirus, the economy, race and policing, election integrity and the candidates’ records.
Trump’s taxes will also likely be a focus after The New York Times reported that he paid just $750 in federal income taxes the year he ran for office and paid no income taxes at all in many other years.
Still, the court is expected to be the dominant topic in the debate, with other top issues being seen along the same ideological spectrum.
“In national campaigns, we always say the court is important,” said Robert Barnett, who has advised Democratic candidates on debate prep since Jimmy Carter’s running mate, Walter Mondale, in 1976. “This time it may actually turn out to be.”
Both candidates are likely to repeat their talking points about the Supreme Court. But during the debate, their comments are likely to reach vast swaths of the electorate that haven’t been following the campaign closely. Biden has said Ginsburg’s seat should remain vacant until after the election, while Trump has nominated Amy Coney Barrett and the Republicancontrolled Senate is rushing to confirm her.
Biden promises to name a Black woman to the court if he gets the chance, but has resisted Trump’s call for him to release a list of possible Supreme Court nominees, as Trump did this year and in 2016. Biden also won’t commit to expanding the court, as some leading progressives are advocating, arguing that to do either would be playing politics by Trump’s rules.
He’s instead using the vacancy to focus on how the court fight could threaten the Obama administration’s signature health-care law amid a pandemic — a case he’ll make again during the debate.
“It doesn’t matter to them that millions of Americans are already voting on a new president and a new Congress,” Biden said of the Trump administration during a speech Sunday in Wilmington, Delaware. “They see an opportunity to overturn the Affordable Care Act on their way out the door.”
Trump, for his part, is likely to brag about the two justices he’s already put on the Supreme Court and look to energize his base with the prospect of a third, which would give conservatives a 6-3 advantage on the court.
“Most important of all, she will defend your God-given rights and freedoms,” Trump said of Barrett during a weekend rally in
Pennsylvania, where the crowd chanted, ”Fill that seat!“
Brett O’Donnell, who has helped five Republican presidential candidates prepare for debates and was formerly the debate coach at Liberty University, said he expects Trump to say “a lot of what he’s already been saying about the courts on the stump.”
“If you watch his debate performances, much of what happens in the debates gets tested out in his town halls,” he said.