Visiting Column #38 -- The Most Effective Debate Prep

I know that President Trump has said recently that he "won" all of the debates in the 2016 campaign, said in the context of his assessment of the 2020 Democrat primary debates.  Now, I think one could argue that point, at least as far as the three with Hillary Clinton, not because she herself won them, but because as debates, they weren't very effective.

Of course, debates aren't really an effective medium for this purpose regardless, since as I wrote a few years back, the format does absolutely nothing to help the voter determine how the candidates differ.  I won't rehash all that, just read the linked piece.

But I'm going to say what most Trump supporters probably feel even to this day -- it was not a shining stage for candidate Trump.  He is a counterpuncher but, more importantly, the debate stage was still a fairly new medium for him in 2016.  Remember, he is a goal-oriented person and leader, and having not actually been in government to that point, he would have not been completely prepared to detail how he would get to the goals he had campaigned on.

But the debates are still what they were -- biased reporters asking biased questions, intended to help the Democrat and embarrass the Republican (oh, try to tell me that's not the case).  And until you have taken lots and lots of those questions, and until you have had a track record enabling you to answer them with an underpinning of actual policy, it's a different case. 

Now, I don't think it should be the media asking questions; I don't think there should be an audience, and I don't think the candidates need to be in the same room.  But I digress.

Fortunately, Mr. Trump's performance at the 2016 debates did not prevent his election and the subsequent turnaround of the USA back into a global power, both militarily and economically.  Maybe it helped, who really knows.  The polling was so poor prior to the actual voting that no one knows anything for sure.

But here's the thing.  The "Donald Trump, Candidate", who was the performer on the 2016 debates with Hillary Clinton, is a far earlier version of the president who will be in the 2020 debates, whether with Bernie, Bloomy, Booty, Biden or Pocahontas.  Why is that?

Well, I don't know how many of you have a news channel on in background, but those of us who do are aware that when the president travels, which is a lot, he rides the helicopter, Marine One, from the White House lawn to Joint Base Andrews, where the jet, Air Force One is based.  And invariably, walking from the White House to the helicopter, he stops to take questions from the press.  Lots of them.

Now this isn't a debate, of course.  But it is a mostly hostile press, lots of purveyors of fake news, and they can ask some tricky questions -- much like a presidential debate, if you're thinking the way I am.

I watch those mini-press conferences religiously.  They are must-see TV, because they're an indicator of how much President Trump has grown in the specific skill of taking hostile questions.  When he does one or two of those sessions each week for several years, while at the same time having mastered all the issues that he has to deal with as president, you can see how and why he is getting really good at it.

And of course, with the economy, our defense and immigration all markedly enhanced, directly because of his policies, he has a lot to say.  And he says it.

So here's the point.  The President Trump who will debate one of the Democrats' seven dwarfs in the fall, is not the same guy as the Candidate Trump who debated Hillary in 2016.  The Democrats forget that at their peril.  Providing he doesn't worry about getting zingers in, or calling his opponent names, and just focuses on how good everything is and ties it directly to this policy or that action of his, he will crush in the debates.

The Q-and-A medium is no longer new to him.  He is practicing every week, not in phony-bologna debate-prep sessions but by taking real, hostile questions from real, hostile reporters on the real White House lawn in front of the People's house -- where he really lives.  Those weekly sessions are the testing ground where the steel is sharpened.

It is an interesting point that the leftist media (forgive the superfluous adjective there) do not really ask particularly critical questions of the Democrat candidates, who are all equally leftist.  Sure, maybe a "How are you planning to pay for that?" once in a while, but there is never any critical follow-up. You have to assume that it dulls Democrat candidates' reflexes and skills when they're never asked good follow-up questions, right?

President Trump takes those questions with aplomb these days.  He's the boss, he knows his material and his innate showmanship kicks in when he has command of that material, which these days is "all the time."  The leftist press takes the bait gleefully, showing up for every one of those press availabilities (though never once crediting Trump for providing them, where their sainted Obama almost never did) and offering great, hostile questions to help Mr. Trump hone is debate skills.

The president is already a fine respondent to hostile questions, a skill he did not have polished to that extent in 2016.  Well, America, he is really, really good at it now, and those without a news channel in the background will find that out this fall.

I don't know if having those regular White House lawn pressers from the start was a conscious decision to help him practice responding to tough questions, but I'd imagine that at this point it has occurred to his staff that the more he does them, the better "debater" he will be this fall.

Of course, his best debate strength will be, simply, that his policies work.  Full stop.

Copyright 2020 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here?  There are over 1,000 posts from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com, and after four years of writing a new one daily, he still posts thoughts once in a while as "visiting columns", no longer the "prolific essayist" he was through 2018, but still around.  Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton