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It's "Debate Tuesday" and assuming the Biden campaign doesn't call a lid on the day at 4:00 PM Eastern, we will finally have a presidential debate. There are a few approaches President Donald Trump can take to ensure victory.
The first is to keep in mind that historically, the first debate is a trap for the incumbent.
Among the most famous first-debate blunders for an incumbent president was in 1976, when Gerald Ford asserted that the Soviets did not control Eastern Europe. The mistake helped lead to a general loss of voter confidence, culminating in Jimmy Carter's election.
In 1984, by almost all accounts, Ronald Regan, at that point the oldest president in American history, lost the first debate to Walter Mondale by coming across as tired, reinforcing an insinuation that he might be too old for the office. While he redeemed himself in the second debate with his famous pledge not to make his opponent's "youth and inexperience" a campaign issue, he did lose considerable ground to Mondale.
As recently as 2012, Barack Obama was a consensus loser to Mitt Romney in debate number one, placing his reelection in some doubt until Romney inevitably reverted to his mediocre mean in debate number two.
What is the cause of this first debate trap? Perhaps an incumbent president fails to prepare, assuming he's battle tested and ready for anything. But it's more likely expectations are simply higher for the leader of the free world and the challenger is given every benefit of the doubt as an outsider.
Which brings me to my second point: The president needs to consistently reinforce that Joe Biden is the real Washington insider. In a sense, Biden's an incumbent four years removed. It is Biden who has been "leading" Washington for nearly five decades. After only four years, Donald Trump is still the outsider trying to fix the problems left by the former vice president and his ilk. The president should say "Joe, I've spent four years cleaning up a mess it took you 47 years to create."
Point number three: The president must embrace both humor and empathy simultaneously. I know President Trump and I know him to be a kind and caring person in a way that is completely unscripted and charming. The American people have not had the chance to see him in that light, largely because of a media that constantly misrepresents him. In this debate he needs to show the nation the authentic and very human side that I, and others close to him, see so often.
Speaking of authenticity, point number four is this: President Trump should follow his gut and feel free to deliver spur-of-the-moment one-liners that will fire up his base and capture the attention of independents. He did this well in his town hall debate with "Crooked Hillary," delivering one of the most memorable moments of the entire 2016 race. Clinton had just leveled the attack, "we should be glad someone like Donald Trump isn't in charge of the criminal justice system," setting the stage for the now famous counterstrike: "Because you'd be in jail." The prepared and rehearsed lines of a joke writer will never compare to President Trump reading a crowd, the American people and the moment. Rather than squash that reflex as too risky, he should feel ready to lean into it and trust his instincts.
Point five: The president should head Biden off on COVID. Biden is going to try to hammer the president's response to the pandemic because polling suggests it could be a vulnerability. The president should come out on the offensive, reminding voters he took early action early with his China travel ban (for which Biden called him xenophobic). He should also draw a firm contrast between his more recent calls for moderation that kept the American economy afloat despite the countless calls by Democrats for increasingly draconian lockdown measures, which include those made by "Lockdown Joe" himself, who has said he would "shut [the country] down" again.
Suggestion six: Ask Biden questions. If the past is any indication, the president can't rely on tough questions from the moderators for Biden. The president, however, will certainly be grilled and after each question he needs to turn to his opponent and say "What would you do about that, Joe? What specific policy would you pursue?" The president asking Joe Biden questions directly will likely agitate the former vice president and ruffle the journalistic feathers of the moderator. President Trump playing off America's distrust for the media plays well. He should continue doing so.
The seventh and final point: Walk a very fine line if and when Biden delivers a signature senior moment. Most Americans still haven't witnessed Joe Biden in his currently diminished capacity. They will in this debate, and depending on how slow he comes out of the blocks, they might be shocked at just how much he's changed since his 2012 debate with Paul Ryan. When the gaffe inevitably comes, the president needs to look seriously, but compassionately into the camera and say:
Everyone saw what just happened. Look, the job of being president is a tough one. It takes strength, stamina and an ability to think and move quickly. Each American needs to decide which one of us is most capable of rising to that challenge on a daily basis.
Those are the strategies that can help ensure President Trump does not fall into the first debate incumbent trap and can come through as a clear winner.
One more thing, Mr. President: be the first to smile. Smiles might be even more contagious than a virus from China.
Charlie Kirk is the Chairman of Students for Trump and host of The Charlie Kirk Show.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
