Trump has spent months painting Biden as incompetent. Now he’s changing his tone before the debate

NEW YORK (AP) — After months of casting President Joe Biden as a shell of a man incapable of putting two sentences together, Donald Trump has changed his tune days before their first debate.

“I assume he’s going to be somebody that will be a worthy debater,” the former president and presumptive Republican nominee said in an appearance on “The All-In” podcast last week.

“I don’t want to underestimate him,” he added.

The changed rhetoric marks a dramatic shift from how Trump typically describes the man he will face in a rematch this November. At his rallies and in speeches, Trump typically casts the Democratic incumbent as a “low-IQ individual” who is “the worst, most incompetent, and most corrupt president” in the nation’s history, and often imitates Biden appearing lost on stage.

The effort to adjust expectations ahead of Thursday’s matchup in Atlanta comes amid concerns from some in his party that Trump has set the bar so low for Biden that he is sure to exceed it. And it underscores the stakes for both men in a race that has appeared largely static for months.

Millions are expected to tune in Thursday, offering a rare opportunity for both sides to try to gain momentum in a contest that will likely be decided by a small fraction of voters in a handful of battleground states.

<bsp-list-loadmore data-module="" class=«PageListStandardB» data-gtm-region=«RELATED COVERAGE» data-gtm-topic=«No Value» data-show-loadmore=«true» data-gtm-modulestyle=«List B»> <bsp-custom-headline custom-headline=«div»> RELATED COVERAGE </bsp-custom-headline> <bsp-custom-headline custom-headline=«div»> In one affluent Atlanta suburb, Biden and Trump work to win over wary Georgia voters </bsp-custom-headline> <bsp-custom-headline