Marc Thiessen, a Fox News contributor and former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, issued a stark warning to President Trump ahead of Thursday’s debate with his Democratic rival, Joe Biden.
“This is something that the President of the United States needs to understand, and the Republican Party need to understand,” Thiessen told Fox News host Bill Hemmer. “This election is not going to turn on Hunter Biden. This election is not going to turn on Big Tech covering up a Hunter Biden story. This is not the closing argument that Donald Trump wants to make in his last two weeks. This is not what he should be talking about.”
Thiessen’s comments come after Trump has emphasized media reports of emails that apparently belong to Hunter Biden, his rival’s son, which detail his business dealings at Ukrainian energy firm Burisma Holdings.
Thiessen instead encouraged Trump to discuss his economic policies and record in his last four years instead of trying to attack Joe Biden’s family. He also warned the president it could be his last chance to win over voters who may still be on the edge with the election just two weeks away.
“They don’t care about Hunter Biden,” Thiessen said. “They don’t care about this. They care about the economy, and they care about not having four more years of chaos.”
The contributor said while Trump’s base will “walk on broken glass” to turn out to the polls for him, he needs to reach those who are in favor of Trump’s economic agenda, but aren’t necessarily fans of Trump’s personality.
“They like Donald Trump, the leader of the economy. They don’t like Twitter Trump. They don’t like Trump who was in that debate the other day,” Thiessen said. “He needs to use the next two weeks and that debate to win those people over. Pointing at Joe Biden and saying, ‘You’re a criminal,’ and, ‘We’re going to arrest you,’ is not going to win those people over. It’s going to push them away.”
Thiessen said he grew concerned particularly after watching a clip of Trump painting Biden and his family as criminals, then accusing a reporter of being a criminal for not covering the financial controversies surrounding him and his son, Hunter.
“I watched that clip, and I said oh gosh, if he does that during the debate on Thursday, that’s going to be a disaster,” Thiessen said.
