You cannot hold American citizens hostage no matter what.

“Catastrophic” is the general opinion of Joe Biden’s performance in last week’s debate.

The president himself admitted to donors that he almost fell asleep on stage.

His performance could have been better if he had done so.

But because he had such a bad night, almost no one focused on the other side: Donald Trump had a good night.

Trump listened to the advice many people gave him, which was to let Biden speak.

The big flaw in the first debate of the 2020 election was that Trump kept interrupting Biden.

There is no need to interrupt Biden.

He constantly interrupts himself.

“Come on,” “Whatever,” “This is what’s going on,” and “You don’t want to hear about that” are the ways he tries to get back on track whenever he loses his train of thought.

This time, Trump has shown exceptional discipline.

He let Biden speak, and wow, Biden fell for it.

Trump’s skills

Trump has done a number of other clever things.

You had to refrain from saying mean things.

Aside from the surreal argument at the end of the debate, when the candidates traded jabs about their golf swings, there was only one time when Trump landed an actual body blow on Biden.

That’s when Trump said, “I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said either.”

If Biden was listening, it must have hurt him.

But Trump kept that aspect of things to himself.

There were plenty of other times during the debate when Trump could have been just as scathing.

But overall, he just looked at Biden quizzically, knowing that everyone else in the country who wasn’t watching the debate through their hands saw themselves in that look.

This showed significant discipline.

Again, if your opponent makes a misstep, you don’t need to tell people about it.

You just have to show them that.

This is exactly what Trump allowed to happen.

Had he continued to emphasize Biden’s inability to answer any question coherently, the audience might have felt more sympathy for Biden and disgust toward Trump for his bullying behavior.

By holding back, Trump has accomplished many things, but one of them is to make himself appear in a better light to swing voters (especially women) who don’t appreciate his more aggressive side.

As a result of these 90 minutes, the Democrats now find themselves in the worst possible situation.

They cannot run in the November election with Biden as their candidate.

It is impossible to imagine Biden in the Oval Office for another four months, let alone four years.

Nap time is over

Knowing now what his nap schedule looks like and how few hours a day the president is mentally alert, there is no way this country can continue like this.

Perhaps a small island nation could get by with a leader who only works a few hours a day.

But the world superpower cannot.

And the world can’t afford that either.

And that brings me to the most important topic: the upcoming debate.

Maybe it will be Biden on stage against Trump in September.

Perhaps the Democrats will have decided to completely ruin their chances by putting Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket.

In a way, it doesn’t matter.

Because no matter who the Democratic candidate is, Trump still has a number of important goals to score.

There is obviously the border.

The failure of the Biden-Harris presidency to close the border in any way is a national security catastrophe as well as a social disaster.

Everyone can see how vulnerable Biden-Harris will be on this point.

There is also much to say about the cost of living crisis, inflation and many other topics.

But there is one message above all that Trump could focus on if he wants to win again.

It’s a question of whether the world respects – and our enemies fear – America.

There is a very good test for this.

A case with a historical precedent.

In the 1980 election, Ronald Reagan gained a lot of ground by emphasizing the issue of American hostages.

It was a year earlier, under the Carter administration, that the revolutionary Islamic government had taken power in Iran.

She also took American hostages.

It was Reagan who saw the opportunity to make this election a success partly because of that.

How can a country dare to capture Americans and get away with it?

He particularly insisted that the hostages would be returned from the first day of his mandate.

The mullahs realized that they were no longer dealing with a weak American leader and the hostages were repatriated.

Today we are in a similar situation.

Iran and Russia in particular are going through a period of citizen barter.

Vladimir Putin has been holding an American journalist (Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich) for over a year.

Russia has fabricated charges against him and is clearly holding him to try to trade him at some point.

In a little-publicized story, Putin’s friends in Iran recently stole two Swedish civilians in exchange for an Iranian war criminal held in a Swedish prison.

US citizen Robert Woodland was also recently arrested in Russia.

Again, probably for a trade.

But most appalling is the number of more than 100 hostages currently being held by Iran and the Qatari-mandated army in Gaza: Hamas.

Among the hostages are at least five Americans.

To Biden and Harris’ shame, these Americans have been completely abandoned.

Show some strength

And that’s where Trump can step in.

He should explain that when he is back in charge, he expects all of these hostages to be released.

All.

And they better be in the best possible condition, otherwise Russia, Qatar and Iran will pay a high price.

Countries like those mentioned do not respect weakness.

They respect strength.

When Americans can be arrested and detained anywhere in the world, it is clear that America has lost that strength and respect.

It’s time to get it back.