The big debate between President Donald Trump and Joe Biden is Tuesday night, and both sides are underestimating what either candidate will bring to the table. President Trump proved in 2016 that he can hold his own with the best of them. And as someone with a long history of working with him in the Senate, I can tell you Biden is no slouch himself.
In recent months, both Republicans and Democrats have questioned Joe Biden’s ability to debate President Trump, but I have no doubt that the former vice president will be bringing his A game Tuesday night. This is a man who has spent nearly five decades in politics. We’ve seen him debate legislation on the Senate floor for more than 30 years. We saw him hold his own in vice presidential debates with Sarah Palin and Paul Ryan, and most recently, he held his own in the Democratic primary debates against countless challengers.
Take it from me. I worked in the Senate with him for many years, and we spent most of that time on opposing sides of our nation’s hottest issues. Joe Biden would not be where he is today if it were not for his political acumen – that should never be doubted.
President Trump needs to be prepared to spar with one of the most battle-tested politicians our nation has ever seen. Hillary Clinton was a tough challenger in 2016, but Joe Biden is a candidate who has seen it all. He has managed to remain relevant far longer than most of our colleagues in the Senate back in the day.
However, this doesn’t mean we should write off President Trump either. He held his own against a large field in the 2016 Republican primary and then had three debates against Hillary Clinton – a career politician in her own right. Seemingly all the pundits wrote President Trump off before those debates, and he came out swinging and caught her off guard.
The worst thing Joe Biden and Democrats can do going into the debate is take President Trump’s political inexperience for granted. They did that four years ago and look at who is sitting in the White House now. President Trump is ready, willing, and able to bring the fight to Joe Biden.
What we will witness at the presidential debate is a knock-down, drag-out slugfest between two candidates who want nothing more than to represent this great nation for the next four years. Neither party should downplay or doubt the ability of these candidates to have their best showing. It’s an overused cliché at this point, but this is the most important election of our lifetimes. Both candidates know what is at stake.
In my opinion, President Trump will leave the debate this Tuesday with a hard-earned victory under his belt, but it won’t be easy. This is a battle that’s in Joe Biden’s wheelhouse – it’s the equivalent of a home field advantage. But President Trump has what it takes. He will go into that debate. He will take Joe Biden head on. And he will knock it out of the park. President Trump defied the odds once before, and I believe we will see him do it once again.
This president has accomplished a lot for Americans. He built the economy up to historic heights once and is doing it again, and he has nominated more than 200 great constitutionalists to the federal bench, with a third Supreme Court justice on the way. Most impressively, he is in the process of successfully securing peace in the Middle East. He has a long list of accomplishments to back him up when Americans tune into the first debate of the season.
The key to victory at this debate for President Trump is to remember what brought him to the game in the first place. It will be tough fight, but if anyone can take on Joe Biden and walk out the winner, it’s President Donald J. Trump.
Mississippi’s Trent Lott was first elected to the Senate in 1988 and served five years as majority leader where he guided the Senate through the impeachment trial of President William Clinton in 1999 and the response to terrorist attacks in 2001.