James Morrow: White House media machine gears up to ensure Biden wins presidential debate

Ahead of this week’s crucial US presidential debate the Trump-hating mass media will do everything they can to drag Biden over the line, writes James Morrow.

Hang around Trump supporters in America for enough time and before too long, you will start to hear worries that things just might not go their way in November.

Yes, the former president is up by a mile in the polls.

Yes, the swing states are breaking his way.

And yes, even traditionally Democrat voters like blacks and Hispanics are turning off Biden, citing everything from the virtually open southern border to a “sticky” inflation that is particularly crushing for the poor and working class.

Yet beneath all this there is a vague worry that, somehow, the fix is already in.

President Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Collage by Emilia Tortorella. Sources supplied.

Not that the election will be stolen like in some banana republic where they also try to use the legal system to jail the opposition leader.

Oh wait, perhaps that’s not the best example.

No, rather the concern is that the Democrat-aligned and Trump-hating mass media – The New York Times, The Washington Post, the commercial TV networks, CNN and MSNBC – are going to do everything they can to hide Biden’s manifest physical and mental decline and drag him over the line.

Exhibit A: This week’s presidential debate, taking place on Friday morning, Sydney time.

All available evidence suggests that Trump is walking into a trap and making a long bet that Biden will literally or figuratively fall on his face so badly that Democrats have no choice but to replace him at their convention in a few weeks’ time. Don’t count on it.

Donald Trump and Joe Biden will face-off in this week’s US presidential debate. Picture: Brendan Smialowski and Jim Watson / AFP.

The entire White House and media machine is gearing up to declare this a Biden win no matter what happens.

It is frankly amazing that the Trump camp agreed to this debate – being held earlier in the cycle than any in history – at all.

Consider the conditions.

No studio audience, and the CNN presenters hosting the debate can mute mics at any time.

And you can bet they will use them. Both presenters, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, have in the past compared Trump to Hitler and his policies to those of Nazi Germany.

And in a case of past being prologue, on Monday another CNN host cut the mic of a Trump spokesperson who dared bring up Tapper’s comments on air.

As The Washington Post’s motto puts it, democracy dies in darkness.

There are other, perhaps more conspiratorial reasons for Republicans to worry, too.

Back in 2016, Donna Brazile, a former CNN commentator who went on to chair the Democratic Party, leaked at least one debate question to Hillary Clinton before her showdown with Trump.

Will the same thing happen again this time?

Others wonder if Biden will be, for lack of a better term, doped up for the debate.

Back in March, after Biden’s State of the Union speech, LA psychiatrist Carole Lieberman observed: “If you look at how Joe Biden usually is – slow and stumbling – compared to how he was during the State of the Union – fiery and angry – these are signs that are typical for someone taking Adderall or any amphetamine.”

She’s not the only one.

Donald Trump watches a video of President Joe Biden. The pair will meet again on Friday our time for the crucial presidential debate. Picture: Joe Raedle / Getty Images.

Two weeks ago on my weekly Sky News program, the US Report, former Trump chief of staff Mick Mulvaney suggested White House doctors might offer Modafinil, a drug sometimes used by Air Force pilots on long missions to stay alert and focused.

And even as they mount a new pushback campaign against what they call “cheap fake” videos of Biden stumbling, slurring, or generally looking lost.

White House officials have also kept the President under wraps at Camp David for days. The suggestion here is that the President isn’t just working and prepping, but also that his aides are adjusting his sleep schedule so that he can perform better at night rather than during daylight hours.

Then, of course, there is Trump himself – a man who even his supporters acknowledge can sometimes be his own worst enemy.

Will he be able to resist the temptation to come on too strong, giving the media a clip they can use to paint him as a bully or an ogre?

Sources close to Trump have told this column that friends and advisers of the former president are telling him to turn it down on the day, dial it back, and give Biden enough space to trip over himself.

This is likely the best advice of all.

Because while the polls suggest Trump is ahead, pollsters also suggest that the nation is filled with “double haters” who can’t stand either candidate and will likely stay home on election day.

Originally published as James Morrow: White House media machine gears up to ensure Biden wins presidential debate