The Biden campaign has finally admitted he is behind — it’s time for desperate measures.

And so President Biden has agreed to debate Donald Trump. Not only is this decision perilous (though necessary), but the conditions agreed upon for the first debate are foolish and reflect an inexcusable misunderstanding of both candidates.

It is quite astonishing how much Team Biden is frozen by loud, obnoxious voices in the New York-Washington media echo chamber. These voices do not represent the country at-large, and it particularly does not represent people's views in swing states. Biden is impotently mumbling and stumbling through the Israel-Hamas war, hectored by a microscopic minority of the population. He cannot take action to limit illegal immigration and has no answers on inflation.

I doubt it is a coincidence that the recent and disastrous New York Times-Siena poll immediately preceded Biden throwing down the debate challenge (or accepting it, depending on your perspective). Nothing induces panic in elite New York-D.C. circles than bad news in the supposed paper of record.

Never mind that their polling is nothing special, and certainly no better than pollsters like YouGov and Morning Consult.

Any bad news or opinion served up by the Times is certain to rattle Democratic elites, but anything favorable to Trump is far, far worse. This latest poll — just the latest in a stream of bad polls for Biden — provoked the fury of Joe Scarborough and other Biden proxies in the media. After all, the New York Times is supposed to be on their team! It is not so much the numbers that hurt as the betrayal.

Biden is losing, so has no choice but to debate. Not only are his polling numbers awful, they are durably awful. His RealClearPolitics average approval is at negative 16 points and trending downward. His approval........

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