How Trump is preparing for debate showdown with Biden, from no podiums to policy talks
Former President Donald Trump is opting for “policy discussions” with close allies and advisers to get ready for Thursday’s showdown against President Biden — eschewing more traditional debate prep in the belief he doesn’t “need” more rehearsing.
Campaign spokesperson Danielle Alvarez told The Post Tuesday that the 45th president, 78, hasn’t gone in for practice Q&A sessions or mock debates featuring a stand-in for Biden — and isn’t even employing a preparation podium.
“He just hasn’t done that, and very candidly, doesn’t need to do that,” Alvarez said. “He does several tough interviews a week. He keeps a very rigorous campaign schedule.”
Trump told the Washington Examiner in an interview published Monday that he believes the coming CNN forum is about “common sense” and “an attitude.”
“It’s very hard to prepare,” he told columnist Byron York. “You’ve got to know this stuff from years of doing it. And I know all the leaders, and I know what I know.”
Among those involved in the policy chats with Trump have been Sens. JD Vance (R-Ohio) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), former Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting director Tom Homan, ex-White House officials Stephen Miller and Kellyanne Conway, and former acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell — a roster first reported by Politico.
In contrast to the presumptive Republican nominee’s more relaxed prep, the 81-year-old Biden has been sequestered at the presidential retreat at Camp David in western Maryland since June 20, surrounded by more than a dozen allies putting him through his paces.
The president’s team has even outfitted an on-site airplane hangar and movie theater with spotlights and production equipment to mimic the CNN studio where the debate will be held, the New York Times reported Monday.
Among the “at least 16 current and former” Biden aides involved in game-planning the debate are ex-White House chief of staff Ron Klain and the president’s personal attorney Bob Bauer, who reportedly is reprising his 2020 role as Trump in the mock debates.
Biden and Trump will face off at 9 p.m. Thursday for 90 minutes. The debate rules include no consulting with campaign staff, no prepared notes, no studio audience and mics that will be muted when the candidate’s time is up.
Trump debated Biden twice during the 2020 campaign, and acknowledged this week that the rules of the road this time around could present some issues for him.
“You have no audience to read,” the former president told the Examiner. “To me, the audience is easier because it’s telling you what is going on, indirectly, with applause or not applause. This room is a sterile, dead room, which is I guess what they want.”
The 45th president quickly agreed to Biden’s debate proposal in May after the incumbent pitched holding forums outside the schedule set by the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates.
Trump argued this week that his rival had expected him to decline the invite, since the rules are widely thought to be a disadvantage to the Republican. However, Trump argued, by saying “yes” to the debates, Biden was the one who had been “roped into it.”
The former president also promised to come out less hot Thursday night than he did at his first debate with Biden in 2020, when Trump’s performance was widely panned.
“I was very aggressive in the first one,” Trump told York. “The second one, I was different, and I got great marks on the second one. It was a little unfair because, in the second one, a lot of votes had already been cast. So I’m probably going to look at the scene at the time. It’s like a fight. It depends on what the situation is.”
The chosen moderators — CNN’s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash — could also “put a thumb on the scale” to make the debate easier for Biden, given their previous anti-Trump remarks, Alvarez warned Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Trump has insinuated that Biden could be “jacked” up on drugs to make it through the forum without a major gaffe or awkward moment and demanded the incumbent undergo a drug test Monday.
“The media wants to lower Joe Biden’s debate performance bar so low he gets a participation trophy simply for standing upright for 90 minutes,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung told The Post, “but make no doubt about it — Biden will be highly prepared and alert on debate night, relying on the same perfectly calibrated dosage used to deliver his widely praised 2024 State of the Union Address or his 2012 thrashing of Paul Ryan in the VP debate.
“The true benchmark for Thursday’s debate should be whether or not Joe Biden can defend his disastrous record on inflation and the out-of-control border invasion versus President Trump’s unquestioned first-term record of success, and if Biden can speak for himself without the overt participation and interference of two CNN moderators.”
