Trouble for Trump as Fox News praises 'enormously
effective' Biden speech
Republican pundits accept success of Biden’s
convention address as Trump’s bid to portray Democratic rival as radical
leftist falls flat
Iowa: Trump clings to narrow lead as Biden closes in
Tom
McCarthy
@TeeMcSee
Email
Fri 21 Aug
2020 17.01 BSTFirst published on Fri 21 Aug 2020 16.57 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/21/fox-news-joe-biden-donald-trump
Under
pressure on the last day of the Democratic convention, Joe Biden “hit a home
run” with an “enormously effective” speech that blew “a big hole” in Donald
Trump’s efforts to paint him as a mentally faltering captive of his party’s
left wing.
And that
was to hear Fox News hosts Dana Perino and Chris Wallace tell it.
“It was a very good speech,” added Karl Rove, a
Republican strategist respected and reviled on either side of the aisle.
Democratic
hopes were riding high that when Biden rose to accept the presidential
nomination on Thursday night, he might deliver the kind of speech to get voters
nodding their heads instead of nodding off, and cable pundits talking about
“momentum”.
Broadcast
to tens of millions, Biden’s speech marked the first truly national moment of
the 2020 campaign, with the formal conclusion of the Democratic primary on one
hand, and the first clear picture of the presidential showdown – Biden v Trump,
Uncle Joe v Maga Don – on the other.
At a
minimum, Democrats hoped, Biden would avoid the kind of verbal slips the Trump
campaign has been using eagerly, if ironically given their own candidate’s
cha-chas with incoherence, to attack him.
But when
Biden was done speaking on Thursday in Wilmington, Delaware, with one arm
around Dr Jill Biden, fireworks in the background and his smile as wide as the
country, Democrats were not alone in realizing that their nominee had not only
connected – he had nailed it.
“I went in
there with expectations of adequate, and he knocked it out of the park,” said
longtime Republican strategist Mike Murphy, a harsh Trump critic, on an
overnight podcast Hacks on Tap. “It was so authentic to who Biden is, and … it
caught the mood of the country, which is unity, steady, competence, ‘We can
rise above this’.
“I thought
Biden had the moment of his life, and he ought to feel really good about that.”
Trump
sought to steal Biden’s big moment with campaign stops outside Biden’s home town
of Scranton, Pennsylvania, that afternoon. After a speech at an airstrip the
president visited a pizza parlor, where he was filmed hoisting a pie, without a
face mask, as staff members, all wearing masks, snapped photos and waved
excitedly.
“They
supposedly have the best pizza,” Trump told reporters. “We’ll let you know in
about a half-hour.”
Alert on
Friday morning to a need to nip Biden’s moment in the bud, the Trump campaign
deployed Vice-President Mike Pence on five morning shows, where he argued that
Biden, a known quantity in Washington for 50 years, was a lurking socialist.
“It’s a
choice between President Trump’s record and agenda of freedom and opportunity,
versus a Democrat agenda driven by the radical left and Joe Biden’s vision that
will result in socialism and decline for America,” Pence told Fox News.
In reply to
criticism by Biden of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus, Pence demonstrated
the extraordinary ability of the two parties to talk past one another.
“The
president keeps telling us the virus is going to disappear,” Biden said in his
speech. “He keeps waiting for a miracle. Well, I have news for him, no miracle
is coming.”
Pence told
CNN: “We think there is a miracle around the corner.”
The biggest
near-term opportunity for Trump and Republicans to draw a contrast with Biden
will be through their own convention, which is scheduled to begin on Monday
with more in-person, physical elements than the all-virtual Democratic event.
Controversially,
Trump plans to accept the nomination on the grounds of the White House on
Thursday, in apparent violation of laws requiring that political campaigning be
kept separate from the conduct of office.
The
president and vice-president are exempt from the law, but broad party
participation in such a major campaign event is inevitable. Trump has invited
most Republican lawmakers (though not Senator Mitt Romney, who voted for his
impeachment and removal from office) to the White House lawn to watch his
speech. The campaign plans to set off fireworks on the National Mall.
Unlike
Democrats, Republicans also plan to convene delegates in-person in Charlotte,
North Carolina. Trump had unconfirmed plans to visit the 336 delegates on
Monday, although the Democratic governor of the state has led an effort to
ensure that Republicans abide by public health guidelines.
“We were
not going to let the governor’s partisan politics come between us and our
commitment to North Carolina,” Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National
Committee – and Romney’s niece – told the New York Times.
That
commitment had wavered. Trump announced earlier this summer that the convention
would be moved to Florida, where a Republican governor had proposed no
coronavirus restrictions. A large Covid-19 outbreak in that state returned the
event to Charlotte.
“While I
will be a Democratic candidate, I will be an American president,” Biden said.
“I will work as hard for those who didn’t support me as I will for those who
did. That’s the job of a president. To represent all of us, not just our base
or our party.”
Biden
appeared to have won some converts. “Joe wows critics,” the Drudge Report,
usually a clearinghouse for the most astringent conservative messaging,
exclaimed on Friday morning.
Its banner
headline? “Biden Barn Burner”.
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