Donald Trump says ‘Sleepy Joe’ Biden must take drug test before debate
Donald Trump has called for Joe Biden to take a drug test before their first presidential debate.
Donald Trump has called for Joe Biden to take a drug test before their first presidential debate on Wednesday (AEST) amid Republican fears that his performance will be stronger than the President’s loyal supporters expect.
The pair will face off in Cleveland, Ohio, for the first of three televised encounters. In recent weeks, allies of the President have been talking up Mr Biden’s debating skills, fearing that persistent snipes by Mr Trump questioning his cognitive abilities have set an artificially low bar for him to clear.
On Sunday (Monday AEST), the President insinuated, without any evidence, that a strong performance from Mr Biden, 77, would be attributable to him using drugs.
“I will be strongly demanding a Drug Test of Sleepy Joe Biden prior to, or after, the Debate on Tuesday night,” Mr Trump, 74, wrote on Twitter. “Naturally, I will agree to take one also. His Debate performances have been record-setting UNEVEN, to put it mildly. Only drugs could have caused this discrepancy???”
Mr Trump raised the idea of a drug test last month after questioning why Mr Biden “wasn’t even coherent” during some of the Democrat primary debates, which featured an extensive field, but was “OK” when the field had been whittled down to only him and Bernie Sanders.
On that occasion, the evidence Mr Trump offered was: “I’m pretty good at this stuff”. In 2016, between the second and third debates, Mr Trump said Hillary Clinton had been “getting pumped up” before the debates and challenged her to take a drug test.
Mr Biden, who was widely regarded to have put in a solid performance in his vice-presidential debate against Sarah Palin in 2008, and an excellent one against Paul Ryan in 2012, is preparing much more thoroughly than Mr Trump for their meeting.
He has been holding mock debate sessions with Bob Bauer, a former White House counsel under Barack Obama, role-playing Mr Trump. “He doesn’t know how to debate the facts because he’s not that smart,” Mr Biden said of the President on Sunday. “He doesn’t know that many facts. He doesn’t know much about foreign policy. He doesn’t know much about domestic policy. He doesn’t know much about the detail.
“He’s sort of like Goebbels,” he added, referring to Adolf Hitler’s propaganda minister. “You say the lie long enough — keep repeating, repeating, repeating — it becomes common knowledge.”
Mr Trump is said to have made no formal preparations for the showdown, despite the encouragement of his advisers to do so. He believes that his best preparation is doing his day job — including contentious interactions with reporters.
Incumbent presidents have often struggled in their first presidential election debate. Even the eloquent Mr Obama was outperformed by Mitt Romney in 2012.
The format of the debate, which will be hosted by Chris Wallace of Fox News, will be coloured by the coronavirus. There will be no pre-debate handshake, nor even an elbow bump. And the audience will be limited to about 90 people, all of whom will be tested for coronavirus beforehand.
The Times
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