From 'WORST debater' to 'worthy debater': Trump changes his tune on Biden's skills

In six weeks, Donald Trump has gone from mocking President Joe Biden as a feckless debater who can barely speak to praising his talents ahead of their first debate in the 2024 presidential election.

“Crooked Joe Biden is the WORST debater I have ever faced — He can’t put two sentences together!” Trump wrote on his social media platform on May 15. Two days later, he said in a speech to the Minnesota GOP: “He can’t talk. He can’t walk. Can’t find his way off a stage. Can’t put two sentences together.”

But lately, ahead of the debate Thursday in Atlanta, Trump is singing a different tune, saying he has watched Biden’s vice presidential debate from 2012 and appreciated his rival’s abilities.

“He beat Paul Ryan pretty badly,” Trump said in an interview with the “All-In Podcast” that published Thursday. “And I assume he’s going to be somebody that will be a worthy debater. I would say I don’t want to underestimate him.”

Trump’s allies are wary of making the same mistake they made ahead of Biden’s State of the Union speech in March, when Trump world disparaged Biden as a feeble old man and set expectations so low that he easily surpassed them.

This time, Trump’s team is making a last-ditch attempt to flip the script and play the expectations game differently, warning that Biden will be well-prepared for the moment. His team is also working the referees by going after CNN’s moderators and claiming it’s the media, not Trump, that’s lowering the bar for Biden.

“The media wants to lower Joe Biden’s debate performance bar so low he gets a participation trophy simply for standing upright for 90 minutes, but make no doubt about it — Biden will be highly prepared and alert on debate night, relying on the same perfectly calibrated