Trump’s Debate Prep Team Leaks — and Chris Christie is Expected to Role-Play Biden

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Axios is out with a sneak peak at President Donald Trump’s debate prep team, which assembled at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey two weeks ago as the showdown with Democratic candidate Joe Biden approaches.

According to Axios reporters Jonathan Swan and Alexi McCammond, the small team included Trump’s new 2020 campaign manager, Bill Stepien, senior adviser Jason Miller, as well as two old foes: Jared Kushner and Chris Christie.

(You might recall that — according to Christie — Kushner had him sacked as head of Trump’s transition team following the 2016 election, over a long running feud sparked by former U.S. attorney Christie prosecuting his father, Charles Kushner, for witness tampering.)

It appears that Christie is back on Team Trump, if informally. As Axios notes, he role-played Hillary Clinton in the 2016 debate prep, and Trump has reportedly made private comments that he will reprise the gig, this time playing Biden.

The team is set to meet “at least every 10 days or so between now and the first debate,” per Axios, which is slated for September 29.

In a letter to the Commission on Presidential Debates, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani requested that the first debate be moved forward, as 16 states will have already started voting by then. Cynics have suggested that Trump’s eagerness to move the event forward has to do with his lagging poll numbers: According to FiveThirtyEight’s average of polls, Biden holds a considerable lead in several key swing states that Trump carried in 2016. Those numbers appear more stable than Clinton’s lead was in 2016.

Per Axios: “Team Trump doubts Biden will submit himself to any tough interviews before Election Day, so they view the debates as the only opportunity to batter him before a national audience, according to three sources involved in the internal discussions.”

As the report notes, despite the low expectations set by Biden’s critics, he has a track record as quite a formidable debater (see: Paul Ryan, 2012). Miller has been trying to emphasize that, and said in a recent interview with the Washington Post that “Joe Biden is actually a very good debater. He doesn’t have as many gaffes as he does in his everyday interviews.”

“I would make the argument that Joe Biden would even be the favorite in the debates since he’s been doing them for 47 years,” he added.