At Camp David, a theater and aircraft hangar are outfitted with lights and production equipment to create a mock debate stage. At least 16 current and former aides have been flown in from Washington and Wilmington, visiting back and forth in golf carts and attending strategy sessions with President Biden.
On Thursday, Donald J. At a presidential retreat in the woods of northern Maryland for a debate against Trump, Mr. Biden enters his fifth day of preparations. Camp David became the center of an administrative and propaganda effort. Mr. He’s helping to shake off the rust that often comes off Biden’s defense and combat widespread voter concerns that he’s too old to be an effective president.
Both candidates are practically absent as debaters. And Mr. Biden’s top advisers, including Ron Klein, who manages debate preparations, are aware of the mistakes made by past incumbents. In 2012, President Barack Obama lost his first re-election debate and had to quickly adjust to the second debate.
So they will work to position Mr. Biden as just a president in the midst of a re-election campaign. Mr. Trump, an opponent skilled at outspoken insults, avoided primary debates that could have sharpened his skills.
“The rust factor is real,” said David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s former top strategist. “Neither of them are in the habit of putting someone a few feet away and roasting them with no respect.”
Those familiar with Camp David planning, who are not authorized to speak about it publicly, say work days vary in length and are not rigidly structured. Mr. Biden and his most trusted advisers think it’s best to refine or practice at this time.
All of them Mr. Mr. Trump Which attacks can be launched on Biden, his Mr. They try to play out exactly which of Trump’s policies they can try to undermine, and how they can best serve the president in terms of getting into an argument and attacking a character. Mr. Policy differences with Trump.
Mr. Officials in Biden’s campaign hope the debate will provide an opportunity to attack issues like immigration and abortion access. In recent days, Mr. Biden unveiled a plan to create new pathways to citizenship for people married to US citizens, while Mr. Trump has suggested forming a league of immigrants to fight each other. Roe v. which guaranteed the constitutional right to abortion. This week marks two years since Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court.
Mr. Biden’s advisers, the organization that Mr. They say it will help highlight Trump’s weaknesses and allow the president to counter the idea presented in misleading videos that he sulks in public. Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump will meet in a closed studio in Atlanta with no live audience. Each candidate’s microphone will be muted when they are not speaking.
But it will still be live television, broadcast on CNN in real time with moderators pressing the two for fact-checking but downplaying the prospect of them venturing into denial territory. David Salian, CNN’s political director, told The New York Times over the weekend that moderators will be “focused on facilitating the debate among these candidates, not the participant in that debate.”
The Biden team will do everything they can to make sure there are no surprises.
Mr. As Bob Bauer, Biden’s personal lawyer, did in 2020, Mr. Trump has played the role.
In his book, “The Unraveling,” Mr. Mr. Trump read the tapes for hours. Bauer said. Mr. He wrote that he wasn’t trying to portray a “Saturday Night Live” version of Trump with makeup and clothes. Instead, he wrote, “I used the language he did on topics that come up in a debate.”
The real Mr. Trump is engaging in an activity that resembles a more streamlined debate preparation process than in years past. He sits in policy discussions with coalition parties. But at the end of the week, he met Mr. As he took the stage across from Biden, he said he was guided by his experiences as a campaigner.
Mr Trump told Fox News ahead of a weekend rally in Philadelphia. “We’ve got all these people here, and they’re shouting questions. I’m looking forward to the discussion.”
At the rally, he said Mr. He attacked Mr. Biden for “going to a log cabin to ‘study'” and said that Mr. Biden would take extra material to “jack up” before debates and that the president would spend most of his time sleeping at Camp David.
But Mr. Axelrod, Mr. He said Biden’s length of preparation is consistent with past presidents. He said Mr. Klein was planning sparring and mock debates that would lead to a two- or three-day debate camp.
“Trump has a different process in which he doesn’t believe in the process,” Mr. Axelrod said. “It’s very typical of what Biden is doing.”
Mr. Mr. Biden’s Camp David production team. Klein and Mike Donilon, who is Mr. Architect of the campaign’s theme that democracy is at risk if Trump wins. Steve Ricchetti, the adviser to the president who manages relations on Capitol Hill, and Mr. Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, will also be there.
Jeffrey D. Giants, Mr. Aides focused on communications strategy are also expected to be there, including Biden’s chief of staff, Anita Dunn, and White House communications director Ben LaBolt.
Several Biden campaign aides are also on the list of attendees, including Jen O’Malley Dillon, Cedric Richmond, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Quentin Fulks, Michael Tyler and Rob Flaherty.
Some Mr. Long returns to prepare Biden: Brian Deis, who is leaving the administration to become director of the National Economic Council in 2023, is expected to visit Camp David to help America refine Biden’s pitch. The economy is recovering.
Mr. Many said there will be a clear division between Biden’s inner circle and the diverse range of policy experts summoned to Camp David, some of whom are not expected to be on site all week when the mock debates begin in earnest.
Mr. Annie Tomasini, Biden’s vice president, is not far from his side. and Mr. Bruce Reid, Biden’s top policy aide, will make a lot of the calls about which arguments to refine, according to people familiar with the planning.
