Chris Wallace: Donald Trump Realizes He Is ‘In A Hole’
On Friday, Fox News anchor Chris Wallace discussed President Donald Trump’s chances of winning the 2020 presidential election.
During an appearance on America’s Newsroom, Wallace pointed out that Trump is trailing Joe Biden, the Democratic Party’s presumptive presidential nominee, in most nationwide and state polls.
The veteran anchor also noted that voters seem to trust Biden over Trump on key issues.
“So, President Trump has a lot of work to do,” Wallace began.
“He’s got some time to do it. But, he’s obviously got to change and I’ve got to wonder whether [people]… have noticed his very different approach to the coronavirus this week,” he stated.
Wallace noted that Trump, who long refused to wear a face mask, recently called masks “patriotic.” The commander-in-chief also canceled Republican National Convention events in Jacksonville, Florida, citing concerns about public health and safety amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The host observed that Trump seems to have made the changes after realizing that the public is not happy with how he is handling the COVID-19 crisis.
“It strikes me as, he’s looking at these polls and he realizes [that] if you are in a hole, stop digging.”
Wallace said that the election is currently perceived as a “referendum” on the president’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, arguing that he needs to turn the race into a “choice election” if he wants to win in November.
Wallace concluded that the president needs to improve his standing among independent voters and seniors in order to beat Biden.
“He can’t win with those numbers; he’s got to turn them around,” he said.
Per The New York Times, Biden has been polling ahead of the president for months. In recent weeks, the Democrat increased his national lead, while surging past the incumbent in key battleground states. In the latest ABC News/Washington Post survey, for instance, the Democratic nominee had a 15-point advantage.
As the NYT wrote, Biden appears to be a much stronger candidate than former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who ran against Trump four years ago. Although polls put Clinton ahead, her lead was never as big as Biden’s and she “wasn’t able to sustain more than a six-point lead for a full month of polling.”
For his part, Biden has made sure to criticize Trump’s handling of the pandemic. In a statement released on Thursday, he accused Trump of waving “the white flag of surrender” as COVID-19 cases surge across the nation.
