Not-so-great expectations: For first presidential debate, Trump sets a very low bar for Biden - The Boston Globe

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

57% : ""The bar's been lowered tremendously by Trump, his campaign, his surrogates, and that's tremendously beneficial for Biden," said Kall, editor and coauthor of the 2016 book "Debating the Donald.
49% : Two days earlier, Trump repeated his frequent contention that Biden would take cocaine or other drugs to enhance his performance.
41% : Trump said in Las Vegas on June 9.
33% : The strategy builds off months of Republican mockery designed to amplify voter concerns in polls that Biden, 81, the oldest president ever, isn't as capable of serving another term as Trump, who is just three years younger.
29% : Trump called Biden "a worthy debater" and said he didn't want to "underestimate him" in a podcast released on Thursday.
27% : A Fox News poll released Wednesday found 50 percent of respondents thought Trump would win the debate and 45 percent thought Biden would prevail.
26% : "He had no idea where the hell he was," Trump said.
25% : "He can't put two sentences together!"Trump and his allies have continued to hammer away at Biden's mental acuity, including circulating misleading video clips purporting to show the president wandering aimlessly at a gathering of world leaders and having to be led around at recent events.
25% : Those are similar to poll numbers ahead of the first 2020 debate, when Trump also tried much less aggressively to lower expectations for Biden.
23% : But Trump has been the one relentlessly pounding down expectations for his opponent this time, declaring he was ready to debate Biden "any time, any place" and couldn't "wait to wipe the floor with him.
20% : "Trump recently tried changing tactics and seemed to boost debate expectations a bit for Biden.
15% : But the overwhelming message from Trump has been that Biden will be a disaster on the debate stage.
12% : Trump and Republicans also have pointed to a video clip circulated on social media to assert that Biden froze at the end of a June 15 Hollywood fund-raiser and had to be led off the stage by former president Obama.
8% : "Crooked Joe Biden is the WORST debater I have ever faced," Trump wrote on Truth Social on May 15 in accepting the debate plan.
8% : "Six days later in Detroit, Trump claimed Biden was confused when watching skydivers at this month's meeting of Group of Seven world leaders in Italy.
5% : [at the debate] because people have traditionally, even decades ago, underestimated Joe Biden."Trump frequently derides Biden's mental state, including pretending at rallies to be Biden unable to find his way off the stage.
2% : Biden recently called Trump "a little bit unhinged," which could backfire if Trump is more restrained than when he repeatedly heckled and interrupted Biden in their chaotic first 2020 debate.
2% : Cheung said the clip cut off the context that Trump was talking about the auto industry and the economy, although Trump appeared to go beyond that in his comments.Brett O'Donnell, a Republican strategist and veteran debate coach, said Trump was taking a risk with his strategy.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.