Maggie Haberman Says Trump Campaign Is Trying to Reverse Course After Having ‘Lowered the Expectations’ for Biden Too Much

CNN commentator Maggie Haberman said Donald Trump’s presidential campaign knows it may have made a strategic error in casting President Joe Biden as a doddering old fool ahead of next week’s debate.

The concern, Haberman says, is that the campaign and other Republicans have set expectations for Biden way too low. Therefore, any mildly competent performance by Biden next Thursday could be seen as a stellar showing.

Republicans have long portrayed the president as being in cognitive decline, if not outright senile. According to Haberman, Trump’s team is trying to change that for the time being.

The former president offered a glimpse of the shift in strategy in an interview he did on The All-In podcast, a clip of which Kaitlan Collins played on Thursday’s installment of The Source .

“I watched him with Paul Ryan and he destroyed Paul Ryan,” Trump said of Biden’s performance in the 2012 vice presidential debate. “Paul Ryan with the water. He was chugging water at a left and right. I didn’t think a human being would be able to drink so much water at one time. And he beat Paul Ryan. So, I’m not underestimating him… I assume he’s gonna be somebody that will be a worthy debater.”

Collins reacted by saying it is notable that Trump is now “talking him up.”

“And I was told that this was where he and his team were heading as they went into the debate,” Haberman replied. “They were trying to move from, ‘Biden can’t tie his shoelaces and is gonna trip his way all over the stage,’ to trying to suggest that they expect that he will be good in the same way he was, say, at the State of the Union several months ago. And so, there is an awareness and Trump’s world that they have lowered the expectations pretty solidly for Biden there. I don’t know that a week out from the debate is enough time to try to recast that.”

Trump and his Republican allies have recently suggested Biden will use performance-enhancing drugs before the first debate. The former president even suggested Biden will do cocaine before the event.

Watch above via CNN.