Veteran New York Times correspondent Maggie Haberman said Wednesday Donald TrumpThe messages prior to the debate between him and President Joe Biden on CNN show that he is aware of the stakes of the live event.
Ahead of Thursday’s showdown in Atlanta, Trump has gone from setting extremely low expectations for Biden to saying the president will be a “worthy debater.” Meanwhile, his Republican allies have raised baseless claims that Biden will take performance-enhancing drugs to participate in the event.
“This is what Trump does with everything that is an open question to him: he tries to frame it in such a way that whatever happens, if he doesn’t get it right, it’s because the system is somehow against him has been set up.” Haberman told CNN’s “Situation Room.”
The fact that he is doing the same here indicates that “Trump knows this debate should go good for him and bad for President Biden,” she added.
In addition, Haberman noted that, as Trump himself has admitted, he must be less aggressive than during the two candidates’ first debate in 2020 and that he must also present voters with his vision of the country, resisting temptation to still use the debate. another forum to air his grievances about the criminal cases against him.
“The more he talks about that, it moves the issue to the forefront and reminds voters of the concerns they have about him,” Haberman said.
Meanwhile, Biden must prove he can handle the “rigor” of a presidential campaign, despite concerns about his age, to win the debate, she said. Biden, 82, is the oldest president in American history and would be 87 at the end of a possible second term.
“Biden has to show that he can be there for a longer period of time,” Haberman told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. “He should essentially repeat his State of the Union address.”
“It’s much easier to be the insurgent than the person in power,” Haberman continued.
