Videos circulating on social media in recent weeks appear to show President Biden’s His reports of declining mental acuity and a recent Wall Street Journal report have further fueled speculation that low expectations about his performance ahead of next week’s debate against former President Trump could diminish his chances of victory.
And Trump may be helping to lower Biden’s expectations by questioning his age and his sharpness in recent interviews. Trump has demanded that Biden be drug tested before he takes the debate stage, saying that if he does well it will be because of his improved performance.
“If he stood up, he’d say it was a great performance,” Trump said at the National Rifle Association (NRA) convention in Dallas last month.
However, according to one expert, “low expectations” will be used to Biden’s advantage.
President Biden (left) and former President Trump. (Win McNamee/Getty Images | Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
“I would be cautious about assuming Biden will perform poorly, or talking about his potential performance because he exceeded expectations in the 2020 debates, in the State of the Union address and in press conferences where they were talking about his mental acuity,” presidential historian and author Tevi Troy told Fox News Digital.
“That doesn’t mean he’s always fully present, and I fully recognize that he’s not the same person he was in 2012, when he debated very effectively against Paul Ryan,” said Troye, who served as a senior HHS official in President George W. Bush’s administration. “But when you lower expectations of your opponent’s performance, it’s easier for the opponent to strategically exceed those expectations. That’s a concern.”
Thursday’s presidential debate will be the first between the Republican and Democratic leading candidates, as neither Trump nor Biden participated in the party primary debates — the first time that has happened in several decades.
Troy, who is also a senior researcher at the Bipartisan Policy Center think tank, believes the real problem for Biden next week is that “it’s easy to contest against Trump when he’s in power, but now Biden is in power and people are still unhappy with a situation.”
“They are unhappy with illegal immigration, they are unhappy With inflation, And they’re unhappy with the feeling that Biden doesn’t have it and doesn’t know what’s going on or isn’t on top of his game. So, it’s a little bit difficult to pursue a ‘memory campaign’ under these circumstances,” he said.
Former President Trump will arrive at Trump Tower on Thursday, May 30, 2024 after being found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. (Felipe Ramales for Fox News Digital)
During this, A GOP strategist Speaking to Fox News Digital, he said the “bar is very low” for Biden, “so him getting through even one sentence is seen as a success in the eyes of the Democratic Party.”
The source said, “After the State of the Union, everyone was saying it was a huge success for him, because he pulled it off despite some notable setbacks. He had some setbacks, but I think voters can’t forget, and they really have to understand what Joe Biden is actually saying. His State of the Union address was one of the most divisive speeches I’ve ever seen.”
“Voters really need to focus on his policy positions,” the source added. “The platform he ran on in 2020 is one that unites the country. And I think a lot of voters can get behind that. But throughout his tenure as president, we’ve seen the exact opposite. And I think that’s the key to that.” Donald Trump can It’s a really good thing. And more than that, to be able to kick him a couple of times.”
Biden’s ‘persistent confusion’ on display in Normandy amid growing cognitive questions
President Biden addresses a campaign event at Pullman Yards in Atlanta on March 9, 2024. (Megan Werner/Getty Images)
Meanwhile, the White House is attempting to discredit online videos of the president, calling them “cheap fakes” that have been edited out of context, or slowed down or sped up.
“Discredited right-wing critics President Biden White House spokesman Andrew Bates told Fox News Digital this week, “Those who spread debunked falsehoods, including that the 2020 election was stolen, are clearly under threat from the wide array of nonpartisan fact-checkers who have pulled back the curtain on the cheap fake slander they’re forced to rely on — because the last thing they want to discuss is Joe Biden’s agenda to cut taxes for working families and bring violent crime to historic lows.”
The president’s mental acuity has become a focus of political discussion this month after a stunning Washington Journal report, denied by the White House, revealed that many lawmakers on Capitol Hill had questions about Biden’s mental acuity, with several saying his age could be gauged in private meetings.
Fox News poll: Trump has 51% support in Arizona, up from 49% in March
As of Thursday, President Biden is the frontrunner in a hypothetical face-off against former President Trump for the first time since October, as positive views of the economy are on the rise — reaching their highest level yet in the Biden presidency, according to a new poll. Fox News national poll.
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The presidential race has changed by 3 points since May. Last month, Trump was ahead by one point, while today Biden is ahead by two points: 50%-48%. That’s within the margin of error. Biden’s current 50% support is his best this election cycle; he hasn’t been ahead of Trump since October 2023, when he was ahead by just 1 point (49%-48%).
Fox News Digital’s Dana Blanton contributed to this report.
