Trump can't win election by calling Biden 'senile', focus on 'America First' mantra instead: Tucker Carlson
Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson, who is known to be among the few friends that President Donald Trump has in the mainstream media, has a new message for the incumbent’s campaign following the disappointing first presidential debate that he attended against Democratic nominee Joe Biden in Cleveland, Ohio.
Both Trump and Biden made vitriolic personal attacks against each other during the 90-minute show with the former vice president even calling the president “clown”, “liar” and “worst president America has ever had”. The commander-in-chief also played his part by alleging that the Democrat would be more harmful to the US’s interests if he became the president and even suggested that he was soft on the rioters that wreaked havoc across America’s cities of late.
Carlson, who has backed Trump against criticisms on numerous occasions and also reportedly influenced his decision-making on issues like coronavirus pandemic and foreign policy, came up with a reality check. He asked the president’s campaign to focus less on personal attacks on Biden and more on policy matters pertaining to his “America First” mantra. He conceded that Trump is not going to get a second term just by calling his opponent “senile” and neither will Biden, by describing the former as “racist”.
Carlson warns both candidates against making personal attacks
“Trump isn't going to win this race by calling Joe Biden senile,” the 51-year-old conservative commentator said on his show ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’ on Wednesday, September 30. “Nor, by the way, is Joe Biden going to win this race by calling Donald Trump a racist, as he repeatedly did last night. That slander didn’t work four years ago. It will not work now. Because personal attacks rarely work, they rarely determine election outcomes. That's obvious if you look at the results, but it's easy to forget it — and many did," he added, while calling the Ohio debate as "painful" and "highly depressing".
Carlson said voters care more about policies rather than rhetoric and added that the US has never been under a worse attack than it is currently.
He played a segment of the first debate where the former veep talked on “buy American” policy. The Fox anchor said Biden “stole” Trump’s lines but called it “remarkable”. “How was Biden able to do that? Well, the Trump campaign should ruminate on that question. Trump's advisers/in-laws are telling him to brag about the number of people he has let out of prison, this at a time when our crime rate is exploding and people are dying as a result of it,” Carlson said.
“Joe Biden's advisers plan to let many more people out of prison, but they're not bragging about it onstage. No, they're hiding it. Instead, they use the debate to talk up a 'buy America' program they will never implement. What we learn here is the Biden people are very serious about politics. They know what the public wants, even if they plan to ignore it if they're elected,” he said. Carlson said even though Biden has been found to be senile during the debate, it could not be denied that he did not seem “senile” on the stage and gave some precise answers.
Trump and Biden will meet for the second debate in Miami, Florida, on October 15 while the final debate will be held in Nashville, Tennessee, on October 22.