Trump and Biden’s dueling debate prep strategies

Jun 23, 2024

By Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels and Ryan Lizza

Presented by

With help from Eli Okun, Garrett Ross and Bethany Irvine

President Joe Biden left, and former President Donald Trump, right.

President Joe Biden and Donald Trump are preparing to square off in the first presidential debate this week. | AP

DRIVING THE DAY

Four days out from the first presidential debate, we’re unsurprisingly seeing a glut of headlines this morning previewing Thursday’s contentious match-up between President JOE BIDEN and former President DONALD TRUMP.

One theme that connects most of those stories? The very different types of debate prep being undertaken by each candidate.

THE FREEWHEELIN’ DONALD TRUMP: Sure, the former president appears to be looking forward to Thursday with anticipation. In his 90-minute rally last night in Biden’s adopted hometown of Philly, he couldn’t stop talking about it.

Let’s just say, he wasn’t exactly policy focused. Trump …

… mocked Biden for secluding himself at Camp David to practice. ("It's been reported that right now, Crooked Joe's gone to a log cabin to study, prepare,” Trump said. “No, he didn't. He's sleeping now because they want to get him good and strong.")

… suggested his rival would use illegal drugs to inflate his debate performance — even alluding to cocaine. (“So a little before debate time, he gets a shot in the ass … He'll come out all jacked up. … Whatever happened to all that cocaine that was missing a month ago?"

… attacked CNN debate moderators DANA BASH and JAKE TAPPER (“Fake Tapper”), and complained about the debate rules that his own advisers willingly agreed to just a few weeks ago — including the lack of an in-studio audience and the fact that mics can be shut off.

Even as some Republicans are encouraging Trump to avoid a repeat of his aggressive 2020 debate approach — when he interrupted Biden so often that he was widely perceived to have “lost” the debate — Trump appeared undaunted. Sticking to his own pugnacious approach, he polled the audience about how he should play the high-profile contest. "Should I be tough and nasty and just say ‘you're the worst president in history’?” Trump asked the rallygoers. “Or should I be nice and calm and let him speak?" His followers, unsurprisingly, roared for the former — then booed for the latter. For more color from the scene, read Lisa Kashinsky.

Of course, Trump is doing some prep. He’s been engaged in “policy discussions” with experts and allies. But his decision to eschew mock debate sessions — and instead hit the campaign trail in the days leading up to the debate — is certainly different than what we’ve come to expect in years past.

THE BUTTONED-UP BIDEN CAMPAIGN: Biden’s inner circle is sticking to the standard debate prep script to ensure their guy is ready for Thursday. Not only is the president busy practicing, surrounded by top advisers at Camp David, but his campaign is making a supremely organized push to drill down on the themes they hope will ultimately drive the week.

The gist is that they want voters to compare Biden to the alternative, not the Almighty, as the president is apt to say, and think hard about what kind of future they want for the country.

“On Thursday, the American people will see two distinct visions for the future on stage in Atlanta: President Biden’s vision, where freedoms are protected and all Americans have a fair shot, and Donald Trump’s dark ‘vision,’ where he will serve as a dictator on day one, give tax cuts to the ultra-wealthy on the backs of the middle class, and rip away women’s rights,” Biden campaign comms director MICHAEL TYLER wrote in a new debate strategy memo that just posted this morning.

They’re aiming to underscore this to voters with more than just press releases: The Biden campaign this morning announced plans to host 300 Thursday-night watch-parties with top surrogates and another 1,600 events across battleground states (e.g. Georgia) leading up to the debate. They’re also going live with new TV and digital ads ahead of the debate and rolling out plans to engage young voters through TikTok, Instagram and X/Twitter.

And that’s just the start. Seeking to capitalize on the two-year anniversary of Roe v. Wade’s demise — a topic on which Biden will grill Trump on Thursday — first lady JILL BIDEN is doing two events in Pennsylvania starting today, while second gentleman DOUG EMHOFF will hit Michigan and Sen. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-Mass.) and AMANDA ZURAWSKI (a Texas woman who nearly died after being denied an abortion) will sweep through Wisconsin. Then, after the debate, Biden himself will fly to North Carolina for a rally while VP KAMALA HARRIS hits Nevada and surrogates pop up in other battleground states.

Will the debate ultimately matter? Team Biden doesn’t think it will change the polls right away, according to a NYT story that posted this morning. But they’re playing the long game.

“Biden aides view the debate as the starting bell for the general election, an event that will provide a high-profile opportunity to define the terrain of the contest,” write NYT’s Lisa Lerer, Shane Goldmacher, Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman. “They sought successfully to move the debate months earlier to help prod the public to pay closer attention.”

LEDE OF THE DAY — “Former president Donald Trump expanded his portrayal of migrants as violent with a suggestion that they could be pitted in fights for entertainment,” write WaPo’s Marianne LeVine, Maegan Vazquez and Isaac Arnsdorf.

QUOTE OF THE DAY — Rep. MATT GAETZ (R-Fla.) to WSJ’s Natalie Andrews: “I’m trying to reshape the House in my image.”

Gaetz, writes Andrews, “says he doesn’t want to divide the GOP. He wants to make it to be just like him. … Asked to describe what that looks like, Gaetz said it is a Republican who can ‘end the wars, shut the border, reduce the spending’ and is a ‘fighter.’”

Good Sunday morning. Thanks for reading Playbook. Drop us a line: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza.

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SUNDAY BEST …

— Biden campaign co-chair MITCH LANDRIEU on expectations for the debate, on NBC’s “Meet the Press”: “It really doesn't matter how Donald Trump shows up — if he comes in unhinged, like he has most of the time, or he sits there and is quiet — people are going to know that he's a twice-impeached, convicted felon who has been found to have defamed somebody, sexually abused somebody and going bankrupt six times.”

On why Biden is losing ground with Latino voters: “Well, I don't know. I think that you got to play this thing out and see, actually, how it works. Latino voters are like everybody else, they move around from space to space. You see this with African-American voters as well.”

— Sen. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-Mass.) on expectations for the debate, on ABC’s “This Week”: “Joe Biden is going to be Joe Biden, and that means he's going to draw the contrast. He'll be out there for working families. He's gonna say $35 insulin and 5 million people who've seen our student loan debts canceled, he’s going to talk about getting rid of junk fees and how his administration is going after the price gougers at the oil pump and the grocery store.”

— North Dakota Gov. DOUG BURGUM on expectations for the debate, on CNN’s “State of the Union”: “[Biden] has got the ability. And we have seen it. We have seen him in debate four years ago. We have seen him in the State of the Union this year, that, when he needs to, he can step up. … I think we’re all anxious to see which Joe Biden is going to show up.”

— South Dakota Gov. KRISTI NOEM on expectations for the debate, on “Meet the Press”: “I don’t think that [Trump] has to get personal in this debate at all, because he’s going to have so many good things to talk about In contrast with Joe Biden’s policies.”

On whether she ever met KIM JONG UN: “I’m not going to talk about that.”

TOP-EDS: A roundup of the week’s must-read opinion pieces.

“Donald Trump’s Get-Out-The-Vote Plan is Bonkers,” by Bill Scher for Washington Monthly
“Indiana is revealing the real consequences of one-party rule,” by Mitch Daniels for WaPo
“The Human Toll of Nuclear Testing,” by W.J. Hennigan for NYT
“Alex Jones Lost Everything — And Still Won,” by Ali Breland for The Atlantic
“Trump Is Haunted by Abortion — He Should Be,” by A.B. Stoddard for The Bulwark
“‘The opposite of a Pulitzer,’” by Phil Elwood for Semafor
“We have run federal agencies. Here’s what the civil service needs,” by Mike Hayden, James Loy, J. Michael “Mike” McConnell, John Negroponte and Sean O’Keefe for WaPo
“If Donald Trump Wins, Paul Manafort Will Be Waiting in the Wings,” by Brody Mullins and Luke Mullins for NYT
“‘The New York Times’ Is Failing Its Readers Badly on Covid,” by Greg Gonsalves and John Moore for The Nation
“It Is Time for Radical Candor,” by Kevin Williamson for The Dispatch
“A memorial for the lives lost to Dobbs,” by Kate Cohen for WaPo
“Why Netanyahu Doesn’t Take Biden Seriously,” by Nick Kristof for NYT
“Will Debt Sink the American Empire?” by Gerald Seib for WSJ

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WHAT'S HAPPENING TODAY

At the White House

Biden and Harris have nothing on their public schedules.

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PLAYBOOK READS

9 THINGS FOR YOUR RADAR

President Joe Biden answers a question as he watches a skydiving demonstration.

Biden's slipping cash advantage is worrying donors. | Alex Brandon/AP

1. BIDEN BUNDLER BLUES: After the recent round of FEC reports showed Trump erasing Biden’s significant cash advantage in the 2024 race, Biden allies took a page out of Trump allies’ book, reacting to the news by playing down Trump’s lead and insisting the president would have enough money to compete, Elena Schneider and Lauren Egan report.

“But privately, several Democratic strategists and donors were reeling. ‘There was the strategy of raising all this money on the front end so we could have this huge edge,’ said one Biden bundler, granted anonymity to speak candidly. ‘The whole point of it was to come out with a sizable cash advantage and, you know, we’re now even and it’s June. … I have no other word for it other than ‘depression’ among Biden supporters.’ Another major Biden bundler, also granted anonymity, called the development ‘disappointing, but not surprising.’”

2. THE FUTURE GOP: As Senate Republicans begin to think about a future without MITCH McCONNELL as their leader, conservatives have sketched out a rough list of early demands for anyone who wants to replace the longtime Kentucky Republican: (1) Commit to term limits on the top spot, (2) revamp internal committee assignments and (3) do not bend to Democrats, even on must-pass legislation, Ursula Perano and Burgess Everett write.

“That pressure has turned willingness to work across the aisle into the preeminent wedge issue in the race for GOP leader as Sens. JOHN THUNE (R-S.D.), JOHN CORNYN (R-Texas) and RICK SCOTT (R-Fla.) fight for supporters behind the scenes. It reflects the right flank’s growing frustration with the longest-serving Republican leader’s occasional interest in working with the other side on issues like spending, infrastructure and foreign aid — a criticism considered laughable less than a decade ago.”

Meanwhile, Sen. THOM TILLIS (R-N.C.) sent a letter to his GOP colleagues this morning “targeting proposed rule changes from the right flank of Senate Republicans — and offering some alternative ideas of his own,” Ursula reports. “The North Carolina senator has been vocally railing against Senate conservatives’ proposals — namely one that would impose a six-year term limit on the next Senate GOP leader, which he argues would weaken the position.” Read Tillis’ letter

3. THE FAMILY BUSINESS: MICHAEL FLYNN has parlayed his Trump-world connections into a plum position as chair of a nonprofit organization that he runs while working short hours. In the first year that he took over in 2021, “Flynn received a salary of $40,000, for working two hours per week. The next year, he got a raise: $60,000, for two hours,” NYT’s David Fahrenthold and Alexandra Berzon report.

But it’s not just Flynn getting paid out — he’s turned the outfit into something of a family business.

“By the end of its second year, his nonprofit group, America’s Future Inc., was running in the red, burning through reserves — and still paying $518,000, or 29 percent of its budget, to Flynns. … He and his relatives have marketed the retired general as a martyr, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for a legal-defense fund and then pocketing leftover money. Through a network of nonprofit and for-profit ventures, they have sold far-right conspiracy theories, ranging from lies about the 2020 election to warnings, embraced by followers of QAnon, about cabals of pedophiles and child traffickers.”

4. SHADES OF ‘68: “GOP Plan for Democratic Convention: Bash Chicago as a Mess,” by WSJ’s John McCormick and Douglas Belkin in Chicago: “Chicago’s ills — from the migrant crisis to pockets of violent crime to shuttered business — threaten to cast a shadow over the August convention in this Democratic-run city. Republicans plan to make sure they do. The city’s embrace of some liberal policies in recent years has made Chicago, like San Francisco, a target for GOP attacks on progressivism. Former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, has stoked that sentiment by repeatedly singling out the city for criticism.”

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5. FISSURES IN THE DEMOCRATIC COALITION: The slipping of Biden’s standing among different blocs of voters over his handling of the Israel-Hamas war has been well-documented, but “Jewish Americans — who make up enough of the population to be determinative in tight battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, Wisconsin and Arizona — have been scrambled too,” CNN’s Edward-Isaac Dovere reports.

“While the Biden campaign has been hosting a regular ‘Jewish Women for Joe’ Zoom call and will soon hire a faith engagement director who will have Jewish voters as a major portfolio, several Jewish leaders complained privately to CNN that they have not seen enough direct engagement. Multiple Jewish elected Democrats and Democratic voters told CNN about being disappointed and abandoned by progressive allies, of feeling ‘politically homeless’ both because they think Biden hasn’t done enough and because they worry he can’t control his own left.”

6. THE ‘DOUBLE HATERS’: The latest deep dive into “The Deciders” — a relatively small but influential segment of voters — is up from WaPo, digging into the “double haters,” who are fed up with the reelection rematch between Biden and Trump. “In more than 60 interviews here over several days last month, people expressed sentiments ranging from resignation and dismay to disbelief and anger over an election in which both the Democratic and Republican parties have served up the same two deeply unpopular candidates,” WaPo’s Ashley Parker reports from Hudson, Wisconsin.

Who they are: “They are more likely to be younger, Hispanic or Black, and women living in larger cities or with no religious affiliation, according to a Washington Post-Schar School Deciders poll in six key states focused on the voters who will likely decide the 2024 presidential election. But voters opposed to both candidates are not monolithic. Some mildly dislike both candidates, but have made peace with voting for the one they prefer.”

In the words of one such voter: “Both options suck. And it’s going to, I think, boil down to what sucks less.”

7. WHAT’S GOING ON AT WAPO: “Washington Post publisher retains ties to past business ventures,” by WaPo’s Craig Whitlock, Jonathan O'Connell and Jon Swaine: “A small digital start-up launched by Washington Post publisher WILLIAM LEWIS has entered into an agreement with The Post that allows the two companies to pursue deals together, even as Lewis still holds a financial stake in the firm. The News Movement, which Lewis co-founded in 2020, recently developed pitches for two major advertisers, Rolex and Starbucks, to engage in commercial partnerships that would involve The Post, according to documents and interviews. …

“Some Post employees who are familiar with the News Movement see it as a possible template for what Lewis has cast as the key element of his plan to revive The Post’s financial fortunes: the creation of a ‘third newsroom’ in addition to its core news operations and its opinion section. [WaPo spox KATHY] BAIRD said The Post has no plans to acquire the News Movement.”

Related read: “For Post’s Lewis, Credibility Dies in Silence,” by Jack Shafer for POLITICO Magazine: “

8. MIDDLE EAST LATEST: “Israel’s defense chief to discuss Gaza war, Lebanon hostilities on U.S. trip,” by Reuters’ Maayan Lubell: “Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant headed to Washington on Sunday to discuss the next phase of the Gaza war and escalating hostilities on the border with Lebanon, where exchanges of fire with Hezbollah have stoked fears of wider conflict. Iran-backed Hezbollah has been trading fire with Israel since the Gaza war erupted more than eight months ago. The group has said it will not stop until there is a ceasefire in Gaza.”

9. THE CLIMATE CRISIS COMES HOME: “Climate change is already making your bills more expensive,” by WaPo’s Sarah Kaplan and Rachel Siegel: “In March, a study from scientists at the European Central Bank and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research found that rising temperatures could add as much as 1.2 percentage points to annual global inflation by 2035. The effects are taking shape already: Drought in Europe is devastating olive harvests. Heavy rains and extreme heat in West Africa are causing cocoa plants to rot. Wildfires, floods and more frequent weather disasters are pushing insurance costs up, too.”

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PLAYBOOKERS

SGOTUS ON SCOTUS — Second gentleman Doug Emhoff dropped in last night on an audience of D.C.-area legal obsessives to kick off a Biden administration drive marking the 2nd anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning the federal constitutional right to abortion, our Josh Gerstein reports.

Appearing as a surprise guest at a live taping of the “Strict Scrutiny” podcast, Emhoff called that ruling “egregious” and painted the high court’s conservative supermajority as an urgent threat to IVF, contraception, gay marriage and more.

“It said the quiet part out loud in Dobbs. And what’s next? What’s next is everything — every single freedom that we think we enjoy is at risk right now and they’re not hiding it. They’re saying it every single day,” Emhoff said as major SCOTUS decisions loom on the availability of emergency abortions and a criminal immunity claim by Trump.

“People need to vote in literally four months. … Who’s president and who’s in the Senate dictates who’s on the Supreme Court.”

Vice President Kamala Harris was on hand and got rousing applause from the audience at the Howard Theatre, but didn’t take the stage.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder did, and branded the court majority’s “originalist” philosophy intellectually dishonest. “They’re just making this shit up. We can’t give this more credence than it deserves,” said Holder. “This is a court that’s not necessarily guided by principle [or] by precedent, but by personnel.”

TRANSITION — Vidhya Jeyadev is now press secretary for Rep. Elissa Slotkin’s (D-Mich.) Senate campaign. She previously was press secretary at the House Ways and Means Committee, and is a Steny Hoyer alum.

WEEKEND WEDDING — Adrienne Shih, senior staff editor for NYT Opinion, and Alex Barker got married yesterday at Meridian House in Washington, D.C. The two met through mutual friends. SPOTTED: Brandon Carter, Suhauna Hussain, Allyson Chiu, Adriana Lacy, Jackie Peiser, Mariana Alfaro, Teo Armus, Erin Logan, Alisha Sawhney and Nick Wu. Their dog Genie the Corgi was spotted at brunch the next day.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Justice Clarence Thomas … Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.) … Chasten Buttigieg … Steven Cheung of the Trump campaign … WaPo’s Philip Bump … Steve Stombres … DOE’s Usha Sahay … Bradley Engle … State’s Robert Palladino … Robert Kaplan … Aaron Cutler of Hogan Lovells … Greg Hale … Meta’s Amber Moon … J.P. Fielder … Niskanen Center’s Louisa Tavlas Atkinson … Atanu Chakravarty … Chris Barnard of the American Conservation Coalition … Emma Whitestone … POLITICO’s Daniel Han and Ryan Kohl … Kaelan Dorr … former Reps. Baron Hill (D-Ind.), Bob Dold (R-Ill.) and Cresent Hardy (R-Nev.) … Ally Sammarco … AU’s Sylvia Burwell … Paul Tewes … CISA’s Lisa Einstein

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