LET’S GET READY TO GRUMBLE
TRUMP, BIDEN STEP IN RING FOR DEBATE
Joe Biden is likely to seize on explosive revelations about President Trump’s personal finances during Tuesday night’s first general election debate, which already comes against the backdrop of a dizzying array of scandals involving the commander-inchief.
The New York Times, having obtained reams of Trump’s tax returns, reported Sunday that the president paid just $750 in federal income tax during his first year in office — potentially in violation of the law — while claiming enormous business losses and racking up a whopping $421 million in personal debt over the past few decades.
The bombshell report — dropped just two days before the debate in Cleveland — shines a damning light on Trump’s self-professed image of himself as a business mastermind and provides a timely line of attack for Biden, who has pitched his White House bid as an antidote to the president’s perceived corruption.
“I view this campaign as a campaign between Scranton and Park Ave.,” Biden said earlier this month during a town-hall event in the small Pennsylvania town he grew up in. “All Trump can see from Park Ave. is Wall Street. All he thinks about is the stock market.”
Trump has tried to push back against mounting outrage over his tax tricks, claiming he was only taking advantage of loopholes in the law used by most rich people.
But experts poured cold water on that defense.
Seth Hanlon, a former senior tax counsel for the House Budget Committee, told the Daily News that the Times report appears to show Trump has engaged in “outright fraud.”
“To put it simply, Trump’s tax dodging was not normal, even for a wealthy person with high-priced lawyers and accountants,” Hanlon said.
Beyond the tax return scandal, Biden is expected to take the stage in Cleveland ready to lay into Trump over his widely maligned handling of the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 205,000 people in the U.S., thrown the economy into a recession and forced millions of workers into unemployment.
The pandemic will be felt in the debate hall as well, with only a limited audience of roughly 70 people allowed inside.
All audience members will be tested for COVID-19 beforehand and must wear face masks. Trump and Biden won’t wear masks, though, and neither will the moderator, Fox News’ Chris Wallace.
The death of Justice Ruth
Bader Ginsburg will also play a large role during the debate, with Trump likely to face heat over his rush to replace the liberal Supreme Court legend before Election Day with Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative federal judge who could shift the political balance of the high bench for decades to come.
“There’s no mystery when it comes to what’s happening with the Supreme Court. President Trump and Republicans have been trying to throw out Obamacare for years — and now they see an opening to get it done. We can’t let them get away with it,” Biden tweeted on Monday.
Trump, meanwhile, sees the debate as his first inperson opportunity to cast doubt over Biden’s mental acuity.
He gave a preview of that rhetorical street fight tactic on Monday.
“Joe Biden just announced that he will not agree to a Drug Test. Gee, I wonder why?” Trump tweeted, reiterating his unfounded charge that the former vice president is relying on performanceenhancing drugs.
The president is also expected to push his fact-challenged claims about mail-in voting during the debate while portraying Biden as a puppet of radical forces.
Biden will all but certainly push back by grilling Trump over his recent refusal to promise a peaceful transfer of power if he loses on Nov. 3.
Other hot-button topics on the table for the debate include widespread unrest over the police killings of Black Americans, climate change and the threat of foreign interference in the election.
The blockbuster first debate showdown between Trump and Biden has the chance of becoming one of the most-watched political events in American history, with millions of Americans still cooped up in their homes because of the pandemic.
However, it’s anyone’s guess whether the debate will actually change any voters’ minds as Election Day looms just 36 days away.
The hyperpartisan environment fanned by Trump’s divisive style of politics has largely kept voters locked in their respective political camps for months, with very few Americans listing themselves in the undecided column, according to polls.
Biden is entering the debate with his lead in the national polls intact, though some surveys have suggested the race is tightening in key battleground states, including Arizona.
At the same time, polls put Biden neck-and-neck with Trump in several traditionally Republican states that are considered must-wins for the president, including Texas, Georgia, Iowa and Ohio.