As the Democratic National Convention plays out in a remote format this week, presumptive presidential nominee Joe Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris, are awaiting the party’s official nomination ahead of Election Day.
While some pundits might be celebrating the partisan affair, President Donald Trump is not impressed by his rival, as he explained in detail during a recent Fox News Channel interview.
“Doesn’t come out of his basement”
“We have a guy that doesn’t come out of his basement and the media covers,” Trump said of Biden during a segment of Fox & Friends on Monday morning.
He went on to draw a contrast between the treatment that the former vice president receives from reporters and what he says he has been forced to contend with throughout his first term.
“When they ask me questions, I have these people — there is fire coming out of their eyes,” he said in reference to members of the press. “They’re asking me questions. I see the fires burning in their eyes and I am looking at some of them.”
The president wondered how reporters could “have so much hatred and we’re having so much success,” noting that Biden does not appear to face the same opposition.
“And somebody like Biden, he doesn’t know what to do,” Trump argued. “He doesn’t come out because he can’t. He doesn’t take any questions from reporters. … This guy doesn’t come out of his basement, and he hasn’t taken one question.”
“Cannot go for three 90-minute encounters”
Trump and other Republicans have attempted to portray Biden as someone suffering from cognitive decline, citing gaffes and misstatements since declaring his candidacy as evidence of their claims.
The criticism was just the latest aimed at Biden, who has spent the majority of the campaign at his home in Delaware since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. A number of Democrats, however, believe he is making the right call.
In June, former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe said that Biden is “fine in the basement” and only encounters “his two body people” on a daily basis while isolating at home.
Earlier this month, Michael Goodwin wrote in the New York Post that Biden’s strategy is fueling speculation that he will seek to avoid presidential debates as well as intraparty fears that he “cannot go for three 90-minute encounters with Trump and emerge intact.”
Although some in the Democratic Party and mainstream media might try to portray Biden as the easy winner against Trump on Nov. 3, it is becoming clear that such confidence does not run as deep as his supporters would prefer.
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