Biden, Trump Prep for Presidential Debate that Will Highlight Mental Fitness

President Joe Biden is hunkered down with aides at Camp David for several days to get ready to debate rival Donald Trump, who is eschewing traditional preparation and instead holding informal policy discussions between campaign stops.
The face-off in Atlanta, at 9 p.m. ET on Thursday (0100 GMT on Friday), will be the earliest presidential debate in modern US history and a critical event for both candidates, Reuters said.
Biden, 81, and former president Trump, 78, are neck-and-neck in national opinion polls, with a considerable slice of the electorate still undecided five months before the Nov. 5 vote.
The debate will provide the starkest contrast yet of the two men, the oldest candidates ever to seek the US presidency, as voters question their age and mental sharpness.
"It's an incredible test of their cognitive competence," said Patrick Stewart, a political science professor at the University of Arkansas who has written a book on presidential debates. "This is our chance to see how much they've declined or if they've declined."
With strict speaking limitations, a ban on notes and no audience to cheer them on during the 90-minute CNN debate, they will need to prepare for tough questions and a format that takes them out of their comfort zones, Stewart said.
Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. didn't make the cut, so Biden, a Democrat, and Trump, a Republican, won’t have to worry about him.
Ron Klain, Biden's former chief of staff and a veteran of debate preparation, is leading Biden's sessions at Camp David, the mountain retreat in western Maryland where the president prepped for his fiery State of the Union speech in March.
A campaign spokesperson declined to comment on whether former White House counsel Bob Bauer would reprise the role of Trump he played during debate prep in 2020.
Biden's team will focus on refining the argument that Trump pursues extremist policies on abortion and other issues, is a danger to democracy, and is beholden to the rich donors writing him checks, a campaign official told Reuters.
While Biden will not shy away from attacking Trump for past actions, including his role in the US Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, the president wants to project himself as a wise and steady leader in contrast to Trump's division and chaos, the official said.
"What he wants to do is have that split screen, show that contrast and have President Trump be forced to account for his more extreme views," said another strategist advising the campaign, who requested anonymity to speak candidly.
INFORMAL APPROACH
The Trump camp, meanwhile, wants to make Biden defend his administration's record on immigration and inflation, as well as how he is dealing with "a world on fire," senior campaign adviser Brian Hughes said in reference to the conflict between Israel and Hamas and Russia's assault on Ukraine.
Trump has held a series of meetings in recent weeks with US senators and advisers at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and elsewhere to review the kind of substantive policy points he would like to make on the debate stage.
Among those involved in the discussions with Trump are US senators J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio - both leading contenders to be Trump's running mate - and Stephen Miller, a senior adviser to Trump during his presidency known for his hardline stance on immigration.
Trump's aides say he is taking a more informal approach to readying for the debate than in the past, when former ally Chris Christie assumed the roles of rivals Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020.
Trump, the aides say, has been honing his argument to voters during more than a year of rallies and media interviews. He is not expected to participate in a mock debate.
"The idea that he has to be in a room and mock out - first this guy does that, then you do this - it's just not his style," Hughes said.
"If we're doing anything at all," Hughes added, "it's simply reviewing with him policies and accomplishments and looking ahead with him at what he'll do in the four years ahead."
Alan Schroeder, professor emeritus of journalism at Northeastern University, sees some risk in the less formal approach for Trump, who like Biden has not debated in four years after eschewing face-offs with his Republican primary challengers.
One of the rules that could prove challenging for Trump: Microphones will be muted except when it is each candidate's turn to speak.
"He's done so many TV events of different types that he sort of thinks he can wing it," said Schroeder, an expert on presidential debates. "But debating is a very specific thing. It doesn't really pay to just show up."

An attacker with a crossbow wounded a Serbian police officer guarding the Israeli Embassy in Belgrade on Saturday, Serbia’s interior ministry said. The officer responded by fatally shooting the assailant.
Both Serbian and Israeli officials said that initial indications are that it was a terror-motivated attack.
Interior Minister Ivica Dacic said in a statement that the attacker fired a bolt at the officer, hitting him in the neck. He said the officer then "used a weapon in self-defense to shoot the attacker, who died as a result of his injuries.”
The policeman was conscious when he was transported to Belgrade's main emergency hospital, where an operation to remove the bolt from his neck will be performed, the statement added.

The policeman is in a life-threatening condition and is undergoing surgery, Serbian news agency Tanjug quoted Dacic as saying.
A spokesman with the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that “today there was an attempted terrorist attack in the vicinity of the Israeli Embassy in Belgrade.” The spokesman said the embassy is closed and no employee of the embassy was injured.
Dacic told reporters that “we are still talking about possible motives."
He added, however: “There are now all indications that the motives relate to terrorism. Because there is no other motive why someone would attack a gendarme outside the Israeli Embassy.”
He said one person was arrested near the scene of the shooting. Police are investigating a possible network and ties with foreign terrorist groups, he added.
The identity of the attacker was still being determined.
Authorities raised the security alert in Belgrade, including for foreign embassies and government buildings but also public places such as shopping malls and other busy areas.

Biden, Trump Prep for Presidential Debate that Will Highlight Mental Fitness