Chris Wallace says Biden turned down interview request after Trump sat down with him to take 'tough' questions
Fox News's Chris Wallace has revealed how presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden was "not available" for an interview after President Donald Trump ripped the former vice president saying he couldn't handle tough questions from the veteran TV host. "In our interview last week with President Trump, he questioned whether his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, could handle a similar encounter,” Wallace told viewers on Sunday. “This week, we asked the Biden campaign for an interview and they said the former vice president was not available.”
“We’ll keep asking every week," he added.
Wallace said Biden should sit down for extended questioning, especially after being targeted by Trump. “The fact is, the president is out there. He's out there in this broiling heat with me for an hour, took all the questions," Wallace told anchor Bret Baier last Monday. "You can like his answers or dislike them, but he had answers, and Joe Biden hasn’t faced that kind of scrutiny, hasn’t faced that kind of exposure."
“You’ve got to feel at some point he’s going to come out from the basement," Wallace continued. "He’s going to have to be more exposed and take questions just as tough as the ones I asked this president."
Speaking to Wallace on July 19, Trump said Biden would be "crying for mommy" if he were subjected to the same line of questioning that he was. "Let Biden sit through an interview like this, he’ll be on the ground crying for mommy. He’ll say 'Mommy, mommy, please take me home,'" the Republican leader said.
"Well we’ve asked him for an interview, sir," Wallace replied.
"He can’t do an interview. He’s incompetent," Trump added.
When asked if he thought the former vice president is senile, the president said he didn't "want to say that." “To be president, you have to be sharp and tough and so many other things. He doesn’t even come out of his basement," Trump added.
Responding to the remarks, the Biden campaign said the president was only recycling self-defeating attacks that have failed to find traction among the masses. “He lurched from smear to smear, all while being forcefully corrected on most, including the lie that Joe Biden wouldn’t keep the American people safe and supports defunding the police -- which has been fact-checked into oblivion over the last month,” Kate Bedingfield, Biden’s deputy campaign manager, said in a statement.
Several prominent figures slammed Biden's reluctance to face questions in the public square, one of them was CBS News White House reporter Kathryn Watson. “Trump sat down with interviewer extraordinaire Chris Wallace. Why can’t Biden do the same?” she questioned on Twitter. “Wallace is tough but fair. And obviously he’s not trying to spin things in favor of Trump, despite his network’s inclinations overall.”
It's worth noting that Biden has held only one press conference in the past 105 days. He also did not accept questions from reporters after two major policy speeches in the past fortnight. Despite the criticism against Biden, he is reported to be leading the polls in several key states Trump captured in 2016, including by "7.8 points in Florida, 7.4 points in Pennsylvania, 8.4 points in Michigan, and 6.4 points in Wisconsin," according to RealClearPolitics index of polls.