Morning Joe panel busts Trump team's 'pathetic efforts' to manage debate expectations

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough and Jonathan Lemire ripped Donald Trump's allies for pushing misleading videos to suggest president Joe Biden was feeble while also claiming he might be using drugs to boost his performance in the upcoming presidential debate.

The "Morning Joe" host wasn't surprised that Trump and his campaign aides were trying to manage expectations before Thursday's debate, but he lambasted the Wall Street Journal and New York Post for helping to boost those false claims about the president's mental fitness.

"They've been doing this because they can't help themselves, and it's not just dumb politicians doing it, who don't know how to set up the debate expectations game," Scarborough said. "You've had the Wall Street Journal doing it with, again, one of the most bizarre front-page articles I have seen in years, bizarre because they use Kevin McCarthy as their main source, who spent the last six months actually countering what they're claiming he's now saying. The New York Post is doing it constantly, doctoring photographs or cutting or editing photographs in a [misleading] way at events."

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"So I guess it's fan service, I guess they're doing this because they think their readers want to see it. At the end of the day it hurts them, it hurts Donald Trump because they lower the expectations, and at the 11th hour, to suddenly have [Rep.] Ronny [Jackson] come out, a man who can't even remember his own doctor's last name, coming out saying Joe Biden needs to be tested, again, just shows how badly they're playing all of this."

Lemire, who's also the White House bureau chief for Politico, agreed, saying that Trump's team clearly didn't have confidence the former president would perform well in the debate.

"The arguments are bad faith and bad politics," Lemire said. "I mean, it's such pathetic efforts here to spin these unfounded conspiracy theories about drug tests and the like, and by doing so trying to set up an escape hatch for your own candidate, who has real concerns. Donald Trump is only a few years younger than Joe Biden. Donald Trump has also not done any debates this whole primary season, he's going to be rusty. Usually that's the problem for an incumbent."

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