@Pressure @wire28 give us your best hot take
Horrible take, especially from someone who should know better. Nate has been spiraling the last couple years because he has not taken polling criticism very well.
1. The Biden campaign does not f*ck with the commission of presidential debates because they bent over backwards to allow Trump to do whatever he wanted previously just to get him on stage and he almost gave Biden Covid. If they aren't going to enforce their own rules, they're useless. The GOP don't f*ck with them either, bipartisan hatership.
2. A debate with Trump is not a serious debate, it's an opportunity for him to get his latest jokes off. Biden is doing this because it'd look weak if he didn't get on stage with Trump at least once. Biden also needs to get his accomplishments, people to see him being active, and to contrast Trump in front a larger audience - there will be millions tuned in to the debate(s). Like the SOTU, being visible will help his numbers with the undecided crowd.
3. Doing this debate earlier than any other presidential debate plays to Biden's advantage so that he and his team get a free dry run to gauge his performance before it will count in the fall. If he sh*ts the bed, he has a lot of time to recover. If he does marginally well - he'll get a slight bump that will close or slightly over take the gap in a lot of polling.
4. If Trump gets indicted this summer, he will NOT do any debates before the election.