Trump just revealed his debate strategy. Here’s how Biden’s team is responding

22 June 2024

Former President Donald Trump recently telegraphed how he'll come at President Joe Biden in next week's presidential debate. Now, Biden's advisors are refining the president's counter-attack.

In his latest column for the New Republic, writer Greg Sargent Biden delved into how Biden's campaign team is preparing the president to respond to likely attacks from his Republican opponent focused on immigration. On his Truth Social platform, Trump strongly hinted that he'll be attempting to pin isolated incidents of undocumented immigrants committing violent crimes on Biden.

"We have a new Biden Migrant Killing - It’s only going to get worse, and it’s all Crooked Joe Biden’s fault," the former president wrote. "I look forward to seeing him at the Fake Debate on Thursday. Let him explain why he has allowed MILLIONS of people to come into our Country illegally!"

Of course, as Sargent noted, the facts don't jibe with Trump's assertions that immigrant crime is a serious problem. Earlier this year, data from various large urban police departments showed that native-born U.S. citizens commit crime at a much higher rate than undocumented immigrants.

"Contrary to public perception, we observe considerably lower felony arrest rates among undocumented immigrants compared to legal immigrants and native-born US citizens and find no evidence that undocumented criminality has increased in recent years," read a 2020 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

However, this won't stop Trump from attempting to frame immigrant crime as prominent and to lay blame for it at Biden's feet. Those close to the president say Biden has a major opening to parry that line of attack and to turn the tables back on his opponent. Former Bill Clinton adviser James Carville told Sargent that Biden could say to Trump: "When I took over from you, crime in the United States was rising. I inherited a rising crime rate. We are now in one of the greatest declines in crime we’ve had in modern American history."

"The public doesn’t know that," Carville said.

Biden is currently at the presidential Camp David retreat to prepare for the debate with his closest advisors. This includes mock debate sessions with aides playing the ex-president. Trump, in the meantime, is putting off traditional debate prep and is instead on the campaign trail in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Saturday.

Dan Pfeiffer, who was a communications adviser to former President Barack Obama, encouraged Biden to pivot from Trump's attacks about migrant crime and instead "express concern about the victim and their family." He added that Biden could then put his opponent on the defensive by harping on "the chaos that Trump unleashed in our immigration system with his cruelty and incompetence."

The first debate of the 2024 cycle will be this Thursday, June 27. While general election debates are typically hosted by the Commission on Presidential Debates, this one will be hosted by CNN and televised from Atlanta.

Click here to read Sargent's column in full (subscription required).

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