CNN Reports Trump Did ‘Less Than Two Hours’ of Debate Prep; Fox Details Sessions With Giuliani, Christie
President Donald Trump less than two hours preparing for his first debate with Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, according to a Tuesday CNN report. Details of what that preparation involved are nebulous, but it involved former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and the president’s personal attorney, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
“We’re told that President Trump did less than two hours of preparation for tonight’s debate,” CNN anchor Jake Tapper said on his program. He noted that represented “a startlingly short amount of time.”
Fox News’ Bill Hemmer gave a slightly different account, indicating that the president held more than one session, but that he didn’t prepare using a traditional debate format. “I talked to Rudy Giuliani earlier today, and he was saying that the longest session they’ve held is two-and-a-half hours, along with Chris Christie,” Hemmer said. “And it was not an actual mock debate, it was about questions and answers, sitting around a table is the way he characterized it.”
Trump told reporters last week that he considered his interactions with them as practice for the debate. “You know, what I do is debate prep every day,” Trump said. “I’m taking questions from you people all the time.”
Biden said he began preparing for the debate “really heavily” on September 24. Aides have said no singular person played the role of Trump in the mock sessions in Biden, but longtime confidante Ron Klain — who served as Biden’s chief of staff in the Obama White House and as a speechwriter for his failed 1988 presidential campaign — has been overseeing the preparations.
Tuesday’s debate will represent an unusual format for Biden, who last participated in a one-on-one debate in a general election in 2012, when he faced off against that year’s Republican nominee for vice president, Paul Ryan. He participated in 11 formal debates with rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination this year. One of those — the 11th and final debate — featured the one-on-one format, pitting Biden against Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
Political operatives tired of the wait spent Tuesday afternoon sniping at each other online, dredging up a 2012 comment by Trump on Twitter in which he predicted Biden “could do well” in his debate with Ryan, calling him a “seasoned and feisty debater.” The president has in more recent days questioned Biden’s mental acuity, saying he is no longer in “prime time.”
I suspect @JoeBiden could do well tonight. Don’t be fooled by his gaffes. He is a seasoned and feisty debater.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 11, 2012
Tuesday’s debate between Trump and Biden is scheduled to begin in Cleveland at 9:00 Eastern. Mediaite will have a livestream of the show.
Watch above, via CNN and Fox News.
