President Joe Biden challenged former president Donald Trump to debates last week because Biden needs to swivel the political spotlight away from his record ahead of the election, according to Daily Wire editor emeritus Ben Shapiro.

Shapiro, who co-founded The Daily Wire, appeared on Fox News’ “Life, Liberty, and Levin” with host Mark Levin on Saturday evening and analyzed the state of the presidential race so far. Biden shook up the race last week agreeing to two debates ahead of November after months of needling from Trump.

“[Biden] believes that if he just says ‘January 6’ then ‘Trump’ over and over and over, then he’s going to win. Presumably, that is why he is now acceding to a debate with Trump,” Shapiro said. “He realizes that this election is a referendum on him. He’s hoping that if he can get Trump on stage, he can make the election a referendum on Donald Trump.”

If recent polls are accurate, Biden needs to shake up the race to avoid losing his reelection bid to his predecessor. Trump is beating Biden in every key battleground state with leads ranging from 0.6 in Wisconsin to 6.2 in Nevada, according to Real Clear Politics polling averages.

Biden is skeptical about the state of his campaign as reflected in polling, according to Axios.

“While the press doesn’t write about it, the momentum is clearly in our favor, with the polls moving towards us and away from Trump,” Biden told donors recently.

In an interview with CNN, the president said: “The polling data has been wrong all along. How many — you guys do a poll at CNN. How many folks you have to call to get one response?”

Shapiro said the president’s trouble acknowledging his poor performance in numerous polls is “the mark of a losing campaign.”

For Trump, the aim of a debate should be to keep the focus of the campaign on Biden’s poor governance, the Daily Wire co-founder said.

“If Donald Trump during those debates simply stands there and points physically at Joe Biden, Donald Trump will be president again,” Shapiro said. “The reality is most Americans, most moderates care far less about the supposed threat of Donald Trump to the democracy. He was president before, he didn’t threaten democracy. He was actually pretty good at the job. [Americans] are much less worried about that than they are about Joe Biden wrecking the country day by day.”

.@benshapiro explaining why Joe Biden is in trouble in the upcoming election. pic.twitter.com/3E8IUqeS3Z

— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) May 19, 2024