While President Biden is expected to be preparing for the first presidential debate with his aides at Camp David, former President Trump is taking a more casual approach.
Instead of holding a mock debate, Trump is meeting with senators in Atlanta on Thursday about policies that could come up on the table and discussing potential topics with aides. He is scheduled to hold a rally in Philadelphia on Saturday and address a convention of conservative evangelicals in Washington.
“I was in Donald Trump’s debate prep room in 2016 and 2020,” former White House adviser Kellyanne Conway told Fox News. “He takes this very seriously, but his debate prep is just about the things he’s talking about: how to stop inflation, what to do on the border.”
In 2020, Trump said he had a pair of Chris Christie and Rudy Giuliani play then-candidate Biden during debate preparation sessions.
This time, Trump did not hold a mock debate with an ally playing the role of Biden.
Instead, Trump is holding what allies are calling a policy conference to discuss talking points on topics including immigration, inflation and foreign policy, preparing for what will be on the agenda in Thursday’s showdown hosted by CNN.
As part of those meetings, Trump recently met with Sens. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Eric Schmitt (R-Missouri), who are among the senators being considered as Trump’s running mate.
Trump also met with top campaign advisers to discuss how to address issues such as the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, which Biden has made a central part of his reelection argument.
“Trump doesn’t want to engage in this kind of false theatricality,” Vance told Fox News’ Bret Baier when asked about his role in helping Trump prepare.
“I think, at least from my limited experience with him, that in his debate preparations he’s been thinking about how to translate these really, really important topics into messages that are effective,” Vance added. “And he’s obviously done that better than anybody, which is why he’s at the top of all the polls.”
But opinion polls suggest a close race ahead of the first debate, which will be both candidates’ biggest opportunity to impress the public ahead of their party conventions over the next two months.
A recent Fox News national poll showed Biden leading Trump by 2 percentage points, a YouGov/Economist national poll had the two candidates tied, and an Emerson College/The Hill poll showed Trump narrowly ahead of Biden in several key battleground states, including Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia and Pennsylvania.
“If Biden is great, the Democrats who called the State of the Union a ‘game changer’ will say the same thing this time,” said Doug Heye, a former congressional aide and spokesman for the Republican National Committee. “The game didn’t change then and it won’t change this time. There’s still a lot of game left to play and it’s going to be a long season.”
The Trump campaign has also signaled it sees Thursday’s debate as a chance to show the public he can handle the rigors of the job, while questioning whether Biden has the physical and mental acuity needed for a second term.
Polls have revealed that age and cognitive ability are top concerns for both candidates – Trump just turned 78 and Biden will turn 82 in November.
“President Trump demonstrates incredible stamina by conducting numerous demanding interviews and delivering lengthy standing rally speeches every week,” Jason Miller, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, said in a statement.
Biden is expected to spend the next few days meeting with senior advisers, including former chief of staff Ron Klain, to review policy documents and develop a line of attack against Trump. CNN reported that Biden plans to hold a 90-minute mock debate.
Biden and his campaign have intensified their attacks in recent days over Trump’s recent felony convictions, and Trump is likely to warn that his election would have a negative impact on the economy and America’s standing on the world stage.
Republicans are urging Trump to raise expectations for Biden and point out that he is a strong debater who can perform well on the big stage, as he did during the State of the Union address earlier this year.
a POLITICO/Morning Consult Poll In a survey conducted immediately after the second debate between President Trump and President Biden in 2020, 54% of viewers said President Biden won the debate, while 39% said President Trump won.
But ahead of the debate, Trump attacked Biden as incompetent and unaware of his surroundings, suggesting the president might get by with the help of some kind of performance-enhancing substance.
The former president, perhaps concerned that he had set the bar too low for Biden, struck a different tone in the interview that aired Thursday.
“I think he’d be a valuable debater,” Trump said on the “All In” podcast. “I don’t want to underestimate him.”
