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CNN
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One is holed up in his mountain home with close advisers poring over binders of briefings, plotting lines of attack and preparing personal assassinations, while the other is working with his running mates to hammer out counterarguments and counterarguments, sharpening policy lines and toning down bombastic rhetoric.
Aides to President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have in some ways a similar goal heading into next Thursday’s presidential debate: to portray their opponents as disruptive and totally unfit for the presidency.
The CNN debate in Atlanta will be a pivotal moment for two men who have spent the past four years swearing at each other, and both candidates know it’s important, according to people on both campaigns, as they meet with their teams to prepare attacks, prepare counterarguments and outline how they will choose their candidates for the November election.
Both campaigns have worked in recent weeks to fine-tune their messaging on a wide range of issues, from the economy to foreign affairs to the fitness of their rivals, and each feels distracted in some way: Trump’s criminal trial that consumed the spring, Biden’s intensive overseas travel and painful legal disputes for his family.
But the similarities largely end there. How each candidate is preparing for the debate is ultimately a microcosm of their differences as candidates, each of whom will enter the CNN studio with different objectives.
In preparation sessions that have already begun, Biden has focused on how to hold Trump accountable on the debate stage, reflecting a broader political strategy that the White House and campaign have been rolling out for months.
“The president has become increasingly vocal about Trump recently and plans to bring that theme into the debate,” a Biden campaign official said.
After suggesting for months that American voters have lost interest in the 2024 presidential election, the Biden campaign sees the debate as a departure of sorts, a chance to present its research on how the candidates compare to each other in front of a newly interested audience.
Trump, meanwhile, is seeking to convince voters that he can be a more stable and effective leader than his successor, despite the legal problems surrounding him and deep political conflicts.
Part of the preparation for the debate has been focused on rhetoric rather than policy: Trump has struggled in policy debates in the past, preferring to deliver rambling generalities, especially without a teleprompter, and he has also been quick to display aggressive behavior in past debates, cutting off opponents and attacking moderators in ways that have burned into viewers’ memories for months afterward.
“You’re probably going to be negotiating with three people, and that’s OK. I’ve done it before,” Trump told supporters at a rally in Racine, Wisconsin, on Tuesday, referring to Biden and the CNN hosts. “You’re going to be debating not with one person, not with half a person, but with three people.”
To prepare, Biden is gathering his most trusted aides this week and next for several days of intensive discussions and preparations at Camp David, the mountainside presidential retreat in Maryland that has helped Biden and his team stay focused in the past before big occasions like the State of the Union.
Preparations are expected to take place over several days, starting with informal discussions of topics, questions and possible responses, and eventually culminating in a more formal 90-minute mock debate. The president will likely be fueling up with his favorite orange Gatorade. (CNN debate rules stipulate that each candidate bring a pen, notepad and water bottle to the podium.)
The White House has left open the possibility that the president and his team could fly directly from Camp David to Atlanta, depending on how much practice remains.
Aides have compiled binders of questions on a wide range of topics, with potential answers for each, for the president to peruse. Four years ago, Mr. Biden was said to have provided detailed feedback on every anticipated topic, sometimes rejecting certain suggestions outright, and sometimes pushing aides to dig deeper on a topic or answer it differently.
Biden’s former chief of staff, Ron Klain, is taking the lead to help the president prepare for the debate with Trump, a Biden campaign official told CNN. Not only has Klain known and worked for Biden for decades, he is also the party’s most experienced debate coach, having mentored Democratic candidates in nearly every presidential election over the past three decades.
Another longtime aide, Bruce Reed, now Biden’s deputy chief of staff, is tasked with sifting through reams of material and hours of Trump’s past appearances to feed the practice sessions. Mr. Reed led the process of putting together the policy content and rhetorical flair for Mr. Biden’s hour-long State of the Union address earlier this year.
Senior advisers close to the president, including Chief of Staff Jeff Zients and White House senior advisers Anita Dunn and Mike Donilon, are also involved in the preparations.
Biden’s campaign has long argued that once voters start paying attention to the election, they will view the choice as a control study, a point the president has made at length but which has not changed in the polls. With tens of millions of Americans expected to tune in to the debate (aides point to recent polls showing a majority of voters plan to tune in), this theory will be put to the test.
Sources involved in the discussions said the Biden campaign plans to rely heavily on Trump’s past statements that have been widely reported in the political media but may not have resonated with the average voter.
According to a close friend, Klain joked that preparing for a debate with Trump should be easy because “he only has eight things to say all the time,” referring to the former president’s tendency to engage in exhaustive debate on common grievances on social media.
The list of Trumpisms (and accusations) is still being refined, but one is sure to come up, according to one of the people: Trump’s suggestion in December 2023 that he will not rule like a dictator “except on day one.”
Meanwhile, Trump is turning to potential vice presidential candidates, senators, policy experts and outside allies to help him brief them ahead of next week’s debate. Trump has participated in about 10 such private meetings in recent weeks that his campaign has described as informal “policy consultations,” a person familiar with the meetings told CNN.
Topics for the meetings will range from clarifying messaging on the economy, borders and crime to views on abortion, the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine and how best to respond to his May 30 conviction on 34 counts of business fraud, the people said.
Earlier this month, Mr. Trump held such a briefing at Mar-a-Lago with Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio and other members of the former president’s staff, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the meeting. The private meeting focused on economic messaging, including how to attack Mr. Biden on inflation, an issue the Trump campaign has said is a top concern for voters this fall.
CNN previously reported that after meeting with House and Senate Republicans on Capitol Hill last week, President Trump held similar policy discussions with Senators Marco Rubio of Florida and Eric Schmitt of Missouri at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Among the topics discussed were democracy and how to answer inevitable questions about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and Trump’s response to the violence incited by his supporters that day. Trump’s co-campaign managers, Suzie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, also attended the meeting and offered advice on how to most effectively address the issue.
Other meetings included senior advisers Kellyanne Conway and Stephen Miller, and former Deputy Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell.
Trump’s sessions so far have not included mock debates or role-playing, and the campaign has no current plans to have the former president do so, according to sources. This is a difference from 2020, when Trump faced off privately against former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie as a surrogate for Biden.
On Biden’s side, casting someone to represent Trump this year remains undecided, with some expecting Biden’s personal lawyer, Bob Bauer, to briefly reprise the role after representing Trump four years ago.
“We had special sessions in which I was required to show Trump at his worst — as personally insulting and crazy as he could be,” Bauer recalled in his book, published this week, describing his methods as “lying, yelling and intimidating in mock sessions.”
Indeed, people in the room said one of the most important goals of the fall 2020 mock debates was to prepare Biden for the range of unpredictable scenarios he might face while standing just feet from Trump, which included everything from lengthy responses to the possibility of Trump hurling personal insults.
During the last election, Biden aides were particularly sensitive to Trump’s attacks on Biden’s family during the debates.
“One of the goals of the preparation process was to get Biden used to the idea that Trump might say really nasty things about his family and his children so that he was prepared and not caught off guard by Trump’s style,” said Kate Bedingfield, a former White House communications director.
Biden’s son Hunter was recently convicted of three felony firearms charges, and the president and his advisers are certainly on alert for this as a potential avenue of attack.
Trump’s advisers have been careful to use the term “debate prep” in reference to the former president and have consistently downplayed the idea that Trump needs the kind of preparation that other candidates, especially Biden, require for such a high-stakes debate. Instead, they have pointed to Trump’s rallies and media interviews as examples of how he is preparing to take on Biden, including answering questions from friendly audience members at recent events.
“President Trump conducts countless tough interviews and delivers lengthy standing rally speeches every week, demonstrating elite stamina,” Jason Miller, a senior adviser leading Trump’s efforts ahead of the debate, said in a statement.
Ahead of the debate in Atlanta, Trump is scheduled to hold a campaign rally in Philadelphia, where Biden has already visited several times this year in an attempt to repeat his 2020 victory in Pennsylvania.
Allies and advisers to the former president point out that Trump has not only appeared in numerous presidential debates over the past decade, but has also debated Biden before, which they say is a key reason for his unconventional approach to preparation.
But while the Trump campaign’s debate preparations differ from the traditional plans followed by most past candidates, and even Trump himself, a person close to Trump told CNN the campaign recognizes there is still work to be done before Trump takes to the podium in Atlanta.
“There’s no doubt the debate will show Trump as the stronger candidate and the better choice, especially when you look at the stark contrast with Biden both physically and mentally, but that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t or isn’t preparing,” said the person close to Trump, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid.
“He’s not going to take the job without being fully prepared,” the source added.
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