CNN
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Facing a potentially decisive debate and an opponent who has spent much more time preparing, Donald Trump’s team is now trying to steer the former president toward kitchen table issues rather than the grievances that have preoccupied him over the past four years.
Trump advisers and allies privately encouraged him to focus intensely on the economy, crime and inflation during Thursday’s debate, citing poll numbers that show he has the upper hand on those issues, Sources familiar with the conversations told CNN.
“These are the issues that are hurting people and need to be addressed,” Trump senior adviser Jason Miller said Tuesday on a call with reporters, citing recent record inflation, migrant crime and papers and President Joe Biden’s management of the United States. -Mexican border.
Some of those allies have also urged Trump to portray the international landscape under Biden as chaotic and to focus on both the two-year war in Ukraine and the fighting between Israel and Hamas as examples.
“It’s no longer a theory,” Rep. Mike Waltz, a Trump ally, told CNN News Central when asked what he hoped to hear from the former president during the debate. . “This is what life was like under the Trump administration – economically with inflation, with the border and security, in terms of crime and in the world… Just look at the Middle East… You’re going to see the contrast and the contrast will be clear. »
Sources close to the former president say that while Trump is aware of the seriousness of Thursday’s debate and the importance of getting a message across, they recognize his propensity to launch into lengthy, off-topic rants, leaving the possibility that they will have fallout to deal with Friday morning.
Trump advisers who have studied the 2020 debates between the former president and Biden are also aware that his aggressive approach in the first matchup of this cycle may have played poorly with viewers. In that debate, Trump repeatedly attacked Biden and consistently spoke over the moderators. His poll numbers plummeted shortly after the event.
Trump himself admitted as much in an interview with the Washington Examiner published Monday.
“I was very aggressive in the first round,” Trump said. “In the second round, I was different and I got very good marks. It was a bit unfair because, in the second round, many votes had already been cast. So I’ll probably watch the scene at that point. It’s like a fight. It depends on the situation. »
Trump allies have also sought to control the narrative around the debate by stoking speculation about various scenarios, in what some people close to the former president have described as efforts to distract from less savory discussions involving Trump.
That includes discussions about whether Trump could anticipate his self-imposed timeline for announcing his running mate before or at the Republican National Convention next month, and instead announce his choice at the vice-presidency starting this week.
Several Trump advisers told CNN that the former president was not expected to make such an announcement this week. Trump campaign manager Chris LaCivita dismissed any such rumors. However, they repeatedly reserved the right for Trump to change his mind and announce his decision at the debate or at his rally in Virginia the following day.
Thursday’s debate is the earliest in a presidential race in modern American history.
Trump’s many policy sessions and conversations with his advisors also touched on how to answer specific questions, including on abortion and protecting American democracy – particularly the events of January 6, 2021 – but also how to return to the fundamental issues seen as his strengths against Biden.
Ahead of debate week, Trump has downplayed the importance of preparation. While Biden has hunkered down at Camp David with his advisers, Trump has been campaigning on Saturday and attending several fundraisers — and has enjoyed comparing approaches. At his rally in Philadelphia last weekend, Trump joked that Biden had “gone to a log cabin to study, to prepare, no, he didn’t, he’s sleeping now.”
But with Thursday’s showdown approaching, the urgency of preparing for Trump has taken on a new dimension. While his team rarely uses the word “preparation” when discussing its strategy for the debate, the former president himself argued that preparing for the debate was tedious.
“It’s very difficult to prepare for,” Trump told the Washington Examiner. “You must know this stuff after years of practice. And I know all the leaders, and I know what I know. A lot of this is based on common sense. Common sense is not allowing people into our country by the millions if you have no idea where they are coming from. …I don’t know, I think that debating is above all an attitude.
Trump allies are hoping he will focus less on his attitude and more on his message on Thursday. Many Trump insiders initially complained about the lack of an audience during the debate, arguing that it would likely be difficult for Trump to build momentum given that he typically feeds off the energy of the crowd. But in recent days, some have argued that lashing out at the crowd isn’t necessarily helpful, noting that the absence of supporters could make it easier for Trump to stay focused on his message and not engage in what he sees as crowd-pleasing rhetoric.
“The moment Biden told him, ‘Shut up, man,’ (during the 2020 debate), I knew we were going to lose the election,” a Trump ally told CNN, adding that rules dictating that microphones would be muted during that debate could help avoid another similar confrontation.
Trump, however, lamented that he will have no crowd to draw inspiration from. The debate rules agreed to by both campaigns did not allow for a studio audience.
“You don’t have an audience to read. For me, the audience is easier to understand because they tell you what is happening, indirectly, with or without applause. This room is a sterile, dead room, and that’s what they want, I guess,” Trump told the Examiner.
Trump’s advisers and allies began the debate week trying to temper expectations, portraying Biden as a formidable opponent — and attacking media coverage of the debate, the format agreed to by his team and CNN moderators. The message is familiar – the system is rigged, Trump says, along with his advisers and allies, an argument he has deployed in the courtroom, on the campaign trail and in the aftermath of the 2020 election – and sets the stage for an escape if the former president does not keep his promises on the debate stage.
Much of the shift in messaging came after the team learned that Biden planned to spend a full week at Camp David as part of his debate training camp — a realization that one Trump adviser described as a turning point in their plans to try to raise the bar on Biden’s performance.
Trump’s top surrogates, including two of his top vice presidential contenders, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, took to the airwaves this week to do just that.
“When he needs to, he can take charge,” Burgum said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, pushing back against what he called “a real effort by the Biden team to try to lower expectations.”
Miller told reporters Tuesday: “We know that when it comes to big events, when it comes to debates, when it comes to the State of the Union, things of that nature , they are going to have Joe Biden completely super-armed with soldiers. He’ll be ready to go. He has some muscle memory that comes from doing this for 50 years.
Even the former president, who often mocks Biden at his rallies as incompetent, changed his posture last week.
“I suspect he will be someone who will be a worthy debater,” Trump told “The All-In” podcast. “I don’t want to underestimate him.”
However, that didn’t extend to his rally in Philadelphia last weekend, when Trump suggested that Biden would need help to “pump himself up” for the debate.
There is no evidence that Biden has taken or considered taking performance-enhancing drugs, and the Biden campaign has sharply criticized the accusations.
