WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump and his campaign have spent nearly a year reducing the influence of Democratic nominee B Biden – and the last few weeks have been trying to reverse the story.
In the days leading up to the first debate on Tuesday – one of the last chances to turn the pace of Trump’s race in his favor – aides and advisers are trying to set the stage for a debate between the president in public and private who has done relatively little. To prepare a skilled debater with decades of experience.
“It’s not a question of who’s going to answer if you get a call at 2 in the morning? If Biden gets a call at 2 in the afternoon, can he answer?” Tim Murtuf, the Trump campaign’s communications director, said in a Fox interview in June. “They just don’t want B Biden to meet the Americans and let the Americans really see how he carries himself in the direction of the campaign, because that’s not very good.”
Last week, Mertoff gave a different assessment of Biden’s communications skills, saying, “Biden debated skillfully in the Senate for decades, won two debates while running for vice president, and gave 11 wuts in the Democratic primaries where he overcame two dozen challenges.” “JB Biden is a master debater who knows what he’s doing.”
TrumpWorld frequently portrays Biden as far from the picture, with the president saying he is in a nursing home, unable to speak without a teleprompter, and will fail the comprehension test used to diagnose dementia. But despite Biden’s efforts to re-emerge as a champion debater, Trump and his campaign have reduced this extraordinary period for him in the minds of many voters, according to veterans preparing for the presidential debate.
“The only way for Trump to win is if it’s catastrophic for Biden, and I mean a moment, or moments, in which the challenge appears vague or unfamiliar and, therefore, unable to hold the presidency,” said Mark McKinney, who met George W. Bush. . He helped prepare Bush for his discussions and Sarah Palin for his vice presidential debate against Biden in 2008.
Trump aides acknowledged during the summer that attacks on Biden’s skills could pose a risk of setting too low a bar for Biden, but the president continued because the strategy was intertwined with his other primary message: that Biden had become a tool. The far-left wing of the Democratic Party due to a deterioration in his mental state.
Some Trump surrogates tried to raise expectations of Biden’s debate performance, but his message was messed up and contradicted by the president, who claimed with no evidence that Biden was unable to speak without the help of his aides and was taking performance-enhancing drugs.
“I don’t know how it’s going to happen, it’s always different, it’s always different when it comes out,” Trump told reporters Saturday.
A lot has been done over the past year to change the dynamics of the race a little bit, but discussions have traditionally been seen as moments that can change momentum. Even if Trump can only eat on the sidelines, it may be enough in many important war states where he is just a few points from Biden, like Florida and North Carolina.
The first debate in particular is the most watched – 84 million viewers entered the first general election faceoff in 201 general.
Instead of having a less formal formal conversation about issues such as crime with national security adviser Robert O’Brien and economic adviser Larry Cudlow and a broader strategy with policy advisers, Trump has avoided engaging in traditional debate with anti-mock and moderate. He also has regular discussions with campaign manager Bill Stepian and communications adviser Jason Miller, one of the few remaining in Trump’s orbit from his 2016 race.
Trump has said he sees his day job as a preparation for discussion, for example by taking questions from reporters and conducting media interviews. But a news conference where Trump commands the stage is very different from when he is sharing the stage with the opposition and the show’s running moderator, debate veterans said. Both Bush in 2004 and Barack Obama in 2012 clashed in their first debate.
“After you’ve been president for a while, you’re not used to being questioned, and you think you know everything,” said McKinnon, who said that was the case in Bush’s first match with 2004 opponent John Kerry.
While Obama and Bush managed to get out of the flop of their first debate, more than 100 million ballots in the electorate have been sent to voters in the states this year. Personal voting will begin as soon as possible in California, Georgia, Iowa and Maine until Trump and Biden face off again.
Trump’s allies have tried to turn his lack of preparation for a formal formal discussion to their advantage, hoping to lower expectations and suggesting he will perform vaguely not because he is less qualified but because he has not spent enough time preparing.
Trump said his lawyer Rudy Giuliani and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie came to help prepare for the discussion at the White House, both playing the role of Biden.
Pressed about how much time is being spent in the debate prep, Trump said, “A little time, not a lot.”
“I’m running a country, you know. I don’t have the luxury,” the president told reporters after returning from a trip to his Virginia golf course on Sunday.
One of the best things Trump can do, a senior Clinton adviser in 2016 who played Trump in humorous discussions with Clinton, said he was going to be the most controversial of the year – who spent some time defending himself and a simple, clear line of attack. And a focused message about jobs and immigration.
But with Biden being the leading proof of a relatively stable vote, Trump has struggled to develop an effective line of attack this time around, and he tends to be more immersed in his own grievances and in defending himself than in 2016, Rains said.
If he was advising Trump this time, Raines said, he could advise him like this: “I’m not going to ask you to apologize. I’m not going to tell you that you have to give an inch on anything. I’m consistent with you. I’ll tell you to stay. You won because of the pillars you laid the last time, and you’re so obsessed with the declaration of victory that you leave no room for yourself. “
