Fox’s Kurtz cautions Trump team against ‘setting the bar too low’ for Biden in debates

Fox News’s Howard Kurtz called a suggestion by some commentators that presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden skip the presidential debates “a terrible idea,” with the “Media Buzz” host also cautioning the Trump campaign against “setting the bar too low” for the former vice president in the upcoming events.

“I think the debates will happen, but there is a growing movement in left-wing media circles that Biden should just skip them because they say either it’s too risky, President Trump won’t play fair,” Kurtz explained on “America’s Newsroom” on Wednesday. “Or, and this is a perennial complaint, they’re too superficial and scripted.’

“Now this is sheer hypocrisy. Many of these people, their heads would have exploded if Donald Trump had blown off the debates in 2016, and it would be a terrible idea for Biden who would be passing off a prime opportunity to convince the country he’s up for the job,” he added.

Kurtz also said that Biden performed better than some conservative critics have claimed in multiple primary debates, which began in June 2019 and extended into this year.

“People forget in the Democratic debates, he had some missteps and he had some off nights, Joe Biden generally did do pretty well,” Kurtz said. “And the Trump team is setting the bar so low by suggesting that he’ll have trouble just getting up on the stage and being incoherent.”

Former White House press secretary Joe Lockhart suggested on CNN over the weekend that Biden should skip the debates.

Trump “will take the truth and destroy it, and Biden will be in the position of correcting him over and over and over again. I don’t think he should give him that platform,” Lockhart, currently a CNN analyst, claimed.

CNN political analyst @joelockhart tells @smerconish that Joe Biden shouldn’t debate President Trump.

Trump “will take the truth and destroy it, and Biden will be in the position of correcting him over and over and over again. I don’t think he should give him that platform.” pic.twitter.com/4EOR4Q9Um7

— CNN (@CNN) August 1, 2020

Other writers and pundits, including New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, are urging the former vice president to not debate Trump unless the president releases his tax returns.

Biden last month agreed to three debates with Trump starting in late September, with the president’s campaign pressing for a fourth debate.