After weeks of setting low expectations for President Joe Biden ahead of the initial presidential debate, Donald Trump and his supporters have shifted their strategy.
The previous mockery suggesting that merely staying on his feet would be a triumph for the 81-year-old Biden has been discarded.
Now, the narrative has pivoted to emphasizing Biden’s debating skills, with insinuations that any impressive showing might be artificially enhanced.
“He’s going to be so energized. He’ll be revved up,” Trump, 78, remarked to supporters during a rally in Wisconsin on Tuesday, alluding to the possibility that Biden’s vigor could be chemically induced.
“Remember all those substances that disappeared from the White House about a month ago? What happened there?
Donald Trump and Joe Biden will go head to head in the first presidential debate next week. Trump has begun talking up Biden’s debate strength after weeks running him down
“Someone left behind a significant amount of cocaine. I wonder who might have done that. I’m not sure. But actually, I think it was Joe.”
Biden and Trump are due to go head to head in Atlanta next week.
In the meantime, Biden is holed up at the presidential retreat of Camp David immersed in debate preparation, while Trump is taking a less focused approach, honing his attacks at rallies and calling advisers.
Up to this week, the former president had been talking down Biden’s chances of besting him.
During a recent speech to the National Rifle Association in Dallas he talked up his own meandering speaking style, before turning to what he called the ‘low-IQ individual’ he will face in the debate.
‘If this horrible individual finishes the debate, which I think he will … if he’s standing, if he’s standing, they’ll say it was a brilliant performance,’ said Trump, before imagining the reviews.
‘It was a brilliant performance. They’ve never seen anything like it … very much reminiscent of the days of FDR.’
Biden and Trump with their wives after the first presidential debate of 2020
J.L. Partners polled 500 likely voters from June 10 to 11 and asked them what they expected to happen when Joe Biden and Donald Trump face off in their first presidential debate
The narrative that Biden is frail man with a diminished ability to hold public attention during speeches has taken hold of the voting public.
A poll by J.L. Partners found that 49 percent of respondents think he will forget where he is during the debate and 41 percent said they expect him to walk off the wrong side of the stage.
Some 50 percent said they expected Trump to win the debate, compared with only 39 percent who think Biden will come out on top.
But that carries a risk for Trump. What if Biden surpasses such low expectations?
This week Trump used an appearance on the ‘All-in’ podcast to begin raising the bar for Biden.
‘And he beat Paul Ryan, so, I’m not underestimating him,’ said Trump of the 2012 VP matchup
‘Well, all I can say is this: I watched him with Paul Ryan, and he destroyed Paul Ryan,’ Trump said, referring to the 2012 vice presidential debate.
He brought up that debate again later in the interview. ‘And he beat Paul Ryan, so, I’m not underestimating him.’
Allies have also floated the idea that caffeine pills, energy drinks or something else could be the key to Biden’s performance.
‘Whatever Joe drank, ate, took before the State of the Union — maybe it was just Red Bull and caffeine pills,’ said Fox News host Sean Hannity recently.
‘I don’t know. Whatever it was, that was not the normal Joe.
‘We never saw it before, and we haven’t seen it since. But we will see it for the debate.’
