Maggie Haberman has laid out how Donald Trump may approach the subject of Hunter Biden at the upcoming presidential debate against Joe Biden.
“I suspect he will interrupt less, and I suspect he will be mean, because I think that is his speed when it comes to being on the attack,” the New York Times reporter said on CNN Tuesday of the former president’s general debate strategy.
She noted that she’s heard “conflicting things” about how Trump plans to discuss the president’s son.
“I think that inevitably, when the question of Trump’s criminal conviction comes up, there is a real chance Trump is then going to turn it around about Hunter Biden,” she commented.
“Hunter Biden is the son of a president, but he is not running for president, and so that is just a different thing,” she added. “But Trump’s folks believe it is a way to get under President Biden’s skin, and I don’t think they would see it as a hands off moment.”
Hunter Biden was recently found guilty by a Delaware jury on three counts related to his illegal purchase of a firearm in 2018. According to his memoir, he was addicted to crack cocaine at the time.
Haberman added, “Trump is aware that his his own attacks on Hunter Biden in that first debate in 2020 humanized President Biden.”
During the September 2020 debate, Trump brought up Hunter Biden’s history of drug use. Biden defended his son, acknowledging he had battled drug addiction but had overcome it, saying, “I’m proud of my son.”
“Trump came off with being incredibly mean and belittling to an issue that a lot of people struggle with,” Haberman said. “I don’t know that we’re there now, this is just a very different moment in time.”
Trump was convicted last month in his criminal hush money trial. A Manhattan jury found him guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.