donald trump unleashed a barrage of unfounded accusations against Joe Biden and CNN moderators ahead of the first US presidential debate on Thursday, in an apparent “pre-bunking” exercise designed to have his excuses ready if he is declared the loser.
In a familiar repeat of tactics used in previous campaigns, the presumptive Republican nominee stepped up demands that Biden take a drug test and accused him of being “higher than a kite” in last January’s State of the Union address when the president was praised. for energy performance.
“DRUG TEST FOR JOE BIDEN CROOKED??? I WOULD ALSO IMMEDIATELY AGREE WITH ONE!!!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform this week.
Related: I’m worried about Biden’s debate with Trump this week | Roberto Reich
The post came after Trump repeatedly told the public that Biden would arrive at the debate “lifted up” after being “shot in the ass.”
A Trump adviser graphically illustrated the image of Biden needing a shot by sharing an image of a syringe.
Even Ronny Jackson, a former White House doctor under Trump and Barack Obama and now a Republican congressman from Texas, got in on the action by writing a letter to Biden asking him to take a drug test.
Trump also targeted Jake Tapperone of the CNN moderators at Thursday’s debate in Atlanta, repeatedly calling him a “fake Tapper” in speeches and interviews.
The barbs were reinforced by Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday when she attacked Tapper twice in a network interview, prompting host Kasie Hunt to abruptly end the exchange.
Trump’s youngest son, Eric, also joined the chorus, reinforcing the view that the attacks are part of a coordinated strategy to minimize the importance of the debate.
“Understand that he’s not just going to debate Joe Biden, he’s going to debate CNN,” Eric Trump he told Fox News on Sunday, adding that the network planned to give Biden “a free pass.”
Conservative Trump supporters have also questioned the impartiality of Dana Bash, Tapper’s co-moderator, in part by falsely claiming that she is married to Jeremy Bash, a former CIA chief of staff who has been critical of the former president. In fact, the couple hasn’t been married for 17 years.
Both lines of attack repeat Trump’s well-worn tactics.
Biden’s baseless allegations of drug use appear set to prevent a stronger-than-expected debate from the president, after months in which the Trump campaign denigrated the president’s allegedly deficient mental powers.
It echoes similar misleading claims Trump made against Biden in 2020 and also against Hillary Clinton in the 2016 campaign, when he accused her of being suspiciously “excited” at a presidential debate and demanded she take a drug test before the next one.
Complaints against moderators are also familiar. In 2020, Trump repeatedly labeled Kristen Welker, the moderator of the second debate aired on NBC, as a “die-hard radical left Democrat.”
“It’s called pre-bunk. He’s preparing his audience to dismiss the entire event,” said Joan Donovan, a professor of media studies at Boston University. The Washington Post. “It’s a communication strategy that’s part of your playbook.”
Even sources sympathetic to Trump acknowledged that the accusations could be false or part of a planned strategy.
Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo responded skeptically to previous accusations from Trump supporters that Biden was taking performance-enhancing drugs. “These are very serious accusations. We don’t know that, we are not doctors. We have no idea,” she told Byron Donalds, the Republican congressman from Florida, when he accused the president of being “mistaken.”
Referring to Trump’s criticism of Tapper, an unnamed Republican source close to the former president told the Washington Post that it was “Trump being Trump,” adding: “There’s nothing unusual about any of this in terms of how it’s playing out.” ”.
