Capehart and Johnson on how the Biden-Trump debates could shape the campaign season

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• Geoff Bennett:

  President Biden and former President Trump agree to face off on the debate stage after months of back-and-forth.

  On that and the other political stories shaping the week, we turn to the analysis tonight of Capehart and Johnson. That's Jonathan Capehart, associate editor for The Washington Post, and Eliana Johnson, editor in chief of The Washington Free Beacon. David Brooks is away this evening.

  It's great to see you both.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Hey, Geoff.

• Geoff Bennett:

  So we have got a pair of debates on the books between President Biden and former President Trump, June 27 and September 10, debates that suddenly came together in a matter of minutes, it felt like, on Wednesday.

  So the first, as you see there, is going to be hosted by CNN, the second hosted by ABC News. The Biden campaign has also agreed to a vice presidential debate hosted by CBS this summer. No agreement yet from the Trump campaign on that one, which has yet to name a V.P. pick.

  So, Jonathan, these debates will be unusual for a few reasons. One, they're happening earlier than normal. The Commission on Presidential Debates is not involved at all. And there's not going to be an audience. I mean, who does this benefit? How do you see this playing out?

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Well, look, I think it benefits — well, first, it benefits the American people.

  Leave aside the Commission on Presidential Debates. The point is, the American people need to see these two men debate the issues and let the American people see and judge for themselves who they want to vote for or not vote for, but you better vote.

  But have them — are they up to the job? Are they up to running this country? Now, in terms of the specifics of the debate, President Biden got everything he wanted. He taunts Donald Trump with a video out on Wednesday saying, hey, I hear you're free on Wednesday. Donald Trump immediately agrees to do it after taunting weeks ago saying, ah, Joe Biden, he's not up to it. He's never going to take the debate stage.

  But, again, anyone who's been paying attention to Joe Biden knows that there was no way he was not going to debate Donald Trump. And that leads to my big question. Even though Donald Trump did agree to these two debates, I will believe it when I see it. I don't think he actually shows up.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Wow.

  Eliana, how do you see it? Do you think these debates are actually going to happen as planned?

  Eliana Johnson, Editor in Chief, The Washington Free Beacon: I do think they're going to happen.

  And Trump had said, I will debate him any time, anywhere. He then accepted the debate. And the specifics of the proposal from the Biden campaign indicate clearly to me, I think, an effort to mitigate risk on their part. They're taking place in June and then in September. Typically, the debates take place much, much closer to the election.

  They're going to be seen by a fewer number of people, because the first debate will take place on cable. Typically, they're on public access channels that anybody can see. So I think Biden wanted to show that he is able to debate.

  But, if anything happens, he's got time to make a correction.

• Geoff Bennett:

  And, Jonathan, Donald Trump has actually been downplaying expectations for President Biden, saying that he's the worst debater ever. He says he can't put two sentences together.

  Is that an unforced error? Because, typically, what you try to do is raise the expectations for your opponent going into something like this.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Well, right. But we're talking about Donald Trump, who never misses an opportunity to belittle someone he's afraid of, but just to belittle anyone.

  And back to something Eliana just said, the key thing about these two debates is that they happen before early voting. One of the big complaints has been, you have got these debates that are happening…

• Eliana Johnson:

  Yes.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  … and people, some people have already voted, and some might regret the votes that they cast.

  By having these debates in June and September, people get to see before they cast that first early ballot. I think this is a great thing.

• Eliana Johnson:

  That's true, but, typically, they talk about an October surprise and a debate's impact on the election. They're mitigating the chance that this could happen — that that could happen by making them so far away.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  But October surprises happen like every Friday every week.

  (Laughter)

• Jonathan Capehart:

  So we should just get rid of the concept of October surprise.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Well, it looks like we could get a decision from the jury and Donald Trump's historic criminal hush money trial as soon as next week.

  Eliana, do you think that the prosecution so far has effectively made their case against Donald Trump?

• Eliana Johnson:

  Geoff, I would say I'm probably not the target audience for the prosecution here.

  (Laughter)

• Eliana Johnson:

  So I don't think they have effectively made their case, but they have — it's a high bar. They need to convince every one of those jurors.

  And they have not been clear about what law it is that Trump violated. The defense, it will be interesting to see how extensive of a case, if any, they mount, whether they call any witnesses. It looks like they could rest their case without calling any witnesses, which would suggest they don't feel too threatened by this case in which the central witness, Michael Cohen, is not — wouldn't say he's our idea of a stellar, upright citizen.

• Geoff Bennett:

  And, Jonathan, this at the outset was seen as being the weakest of the four criminal cases facing Donald Trump, and yet it might be the only case that goes to trial and ends before the election.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Right.

  And that's why I think folks who have been putting down this case, I think, were wrong to do so. The whole point is to hold Donald Trump accountable. And now a jury of his peers are about to hold him accountable.

  And anyone who thinks that this entire case rests on the credibility of Michael Cohen hasn't been paying attention to the case. There's a reason why David Pecker, the former publisher of "The National Enquirer," went first, to show, there was a culture here, there was a system here.

  Stormy Daniels talked about the system. Hope Hicks took the stand and talked about her work in that time. All of these people clubbed Michael Cohen like he was a pinata in the week before he took the stand. And I think that was for the sole purpose of getting it into the jury's head that Michael Cohen's not a good guy, and you're going to see a — not a good guy take the stand.

  And so just take all of that information in and then pay attention to the law and to what's at stake here. And I think — I think, the defense, I would love for them to make their case. They're hammering Michael Cohen, but I have not heard them rebut any of the allegations against the former president.

  And that's something I would love to see.

• Eliana Johnson:

  Their case is going to be that this isn't a crime.

  And you talked about the other witnesses, Pecker, Hope Hicks. Stormy Daniels was up there, talking about things that are not appropriate to repeat on this network. But Michael Cohen is the key witnesses to the crime, which is the falsification of business records. The other people named were not witness to the particular crime in question, and that's what the defense is going to focus on.

• Geoff Bennett:

  In the time that remains, I want to talk about this reporting from The New York Times.

  We learned yesterday that an upside-down American flag, which is the symbol that was used by some Trump supporters who challenged the legitimacy of Joe Biden's 2020 victory, that this upside-down flag hung outside the home of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. I think we — I hope we have the picture there published by The New York Times.

  This was after the election. This was on January 6 — or, rather, January 17, 2021. And Justice Alito issued the statement where he says: "I had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag. It was briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor's use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs."

  Jonathan, your reaction to this.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  This is outrageous. And it's outrageous because this is a Supreme Court justice who, at the time that flag was flown, was sitting in judgment of a particular case involving the — still, at that point, the sitting president.

  The other thing is, could you imagine what would have happened if that flag was flying like that on the property of Ruth Bader Ginsburg or Ketanji Brown Jackson, someone from the liberal wing on the bench of the Supreme Court? They would have been impeached.

  And so the idea that we're supposed to accept Justice Alito's rationale here that, oh, my wife did it, it's unacceptable. And I think it just feeds into the erosion of the trust and the standing of the Supreme Court with the American public.

• Geoff Bennett:

  And, Eliana, apart from the ethical issues, there are dispassionate observers here who've said that the — Alito doesn't deny that the flag was flying upside down. He doesn't deny its meaning. And he doesn't disavow what happened.

• Eliana Johnson:

  Well, he has said that it involved a dispute — his wife's dispute with a neighbor.

  But let's stipulate, let's stipulate that his wife doesn't believe — and I have no idea whether this is true — his wife doesn't believe Joe Biden is the rightful victor of the 2020 election, and she flew the flag upside down in protest of that.

  I don't think that the good liberal readers of The New York Times or viewers of this network would be willing to argue with a straight face that the views of a woman — and she has not come out to say that she didn't do this — are derivative of her husband's views.

  My husband has nothing to do with the things I say on this network, and you can't have it both ways. You cannot say that women are strong and should be out and employed and have their own views and that their husbands are responsible for everything they then go and do.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Just, you — I mean, liberals will do that because they're just using what conservatives have used as a cudgel against them.

  And if that had happened, again, to RBG, they would be raining thunder calling for her resignation. And I wouldn't — I would have a hard time arguing with them.

• Geoff Bennett:

  All right, Jonathan Capehart, Eliana Johnson, we thank you both. Appreciate it.

• Eliana Johnson:

  Thank you.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Thanks, Geoff.