Maddow Blog | Ahead of debate, Trump struggles to play the expectations game

The last time Joe Biden and Donald Trump were in the same room, it was Oct. 22, 2020. The two met in Nashville for the final debate of the 2020 election cycle and haven’t seen each other since.

Ideally, Trump would’ve been at Biden’s presidential inauguration, held three months later — that is how the process usually works in this country — but the Republican pursued a different course.

If all goes according to plan, the incumbent president and the former president will meet again in just six days, sharing a debate stage in Atlanta. Ahead of the event, the candidates and campaigns are doing what they always do ahead of debates, which is try to manage expectations.

Indeed, as we discuss every four years around this time, presidential campaigns invest quite a bit of time and energy into these pre-debate tactics, sometimes going to comical lengths to argue that their rival is an extraordinary debater, while their boss is woefully unprepared for the events. (My personal favorite came in 2004, when the Bush/Cheney team, with great sincerity, told campaign reporters that John Kerry was the greatest debater since Cicero, the legendary orator from ancient Rome.)

The trouble is, Trump is exceedingly bad at this game, despite this being his third run for the White House in as many cycles.

The New York Times had a good report on this after the presumptive GOP nominee’s latest rally in Wisconsin.

This happens a lot.

At some level, Trump must understand that it helps Biden when he lowers expectations for Biden. In fact, this has happened before: Four years ago, Trump told the public that he would “DESTROY” Biden in the debates, and national polling found that a plurality of Americans did, in fact, expect Trump to prevail in these events.

The tactics backfired: When Biden and Trump actually met for their debates, post-event polling found that most Americans thought Biden won, thanks in part to the low expectations the Democrat was easily able to clear.

Four years later, the Republican nevertheless declared last month that the incumbent president is “the WORST debater I have ever faced," adding, "He can’t put two sentences together!”

Perhaps realizing that this is the opposite of the message he’s supposed to be pushing, Trump reversed course yesterday, saying on a podcast that Biden is actually an effective and “worthy” debater who “destroyed” Paul Ryan during their 2012 vice presidential debate.

But seconds later, again unable to help himself, the Republican quickly added that he believes Biden is secretly in cognitive decline. “I shouldn’t be the one to say that,” Trump said of his rival, “but I don’t think he’s doing particularly well.”

So to recap, Americans are supposed to believe that Biden is both a good debater who knows what he’s doing, and he’s also the worst debater who’s physically unwell and “can’t put two sentences together.”

There’s a reason no one’s ever accused the former president of being a tactical mastermind.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

This article was originally published on MSNBC.com