"Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace is in disbelief over the Biden campaign's decision not to have any top officials appear on the Sunday talk shows the weekend before the Democratic National Convention. The veteran journalist called it "the damnedest thing [he's] ever seen" in a Friday interview with Guy Benson on Fox News Radio.
"So I've been doing Sunday shows with conventions. I started on Meet the Press in 1988. I've been doing it on and off. For what? What is that? Thirty-two years," Wallace said. "And it always happens that the Sunday before the convention, the campaign puts out top officials to preview the convention and to say this is what we're gonna try to get accomplished."
The Democratic National Convention, which will be virtual this year, is set to kick off next week, with vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris set to take the virtual stage on Wednesday and Biden slated sometime Thursday evening. Both will make their remarks from Delaware without a crowd, consistent with the Biden campaign's basement strategy where the Democratic candidate largely refrains from the campaign trail and limits his exposure to the press. Friday marked the third day in a row that Biden and Harris have refused to take questions from the media.
Wallace told Benson that "Fox News Sunday" had assumed all week long that a top official from the Biden camp would make an appearance on the program. But Wallace was shocked to learn that no one from the Biden campaign was willing to appear.
"And at first I thought, well, maybe it's because it's Fox News and they're boycotting us," Wallace said. "No, they're not putting anybody out on any of the Sunday shows."
"I don't understand what's going on here," Wallace continued. "This is the damnedest thing I've ever seen ... We're gonna do it for the Republicans a week from Sunday. What are you trying to accomplish this week? And they, the Biden campaign, isn't putting anybody out."
Wallace doesn't consider Biden's basement strategy a tenable option for the campaign with three months still left to go before the election.
"I don't think you can hide from now until Election Day. I just, I just don't think it's possible," Wallace concluded.
On Thursday, Biden called for nationwide face masking over the next three months, i.e. until the election. And on Friday, Rush Limbaugh told listeners that Biden's call for universal masking is also part and parcel of the campaign's basement strategy.
Of course, the true obstacle to the basement strategy is a series of presidential debates scheduled before the election. And Biden's supporters are already making excuses for Biden to cancel the debates, and prominent liberals are also encouraging Biden not to participate.