Donald Trump and his campaign are metaphorically working the referees ahead of his debate because he allowed the rules to be "rigged" against him.
The former president and his allies have been preemptively complaining about the rules, the CNN moderators, and the studio setup, and suggesting that president Joe Biden will be taking some form of performance-enhancing drugs to gain an advantage, but conservative columnist Matt Lewis told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that Trump clearly doesn't feel confident that he'll win on the merits.
"Whether it's an election like the 2020 election, whether it's a trial like the New York hush money trial or whether it's the debate, Donald Trump doesn't [wait] until he loses to start complaining and arguing that the thing is rigged," Lewis said. "He is pre-spinning. I think part of it is what we were talking about earlier in this segment which is the expectations game, right? After saying thatJjoe Biden can't string two sentences together, they are finally getting a little worried. They are finally trying to change that expectations game and say, well, he'll be hopped up on caffeine. I think part of this simply is Donald Trump's M.O.: He complains. He claims it's rigged. The only way I could lose this election, he says, is if it's rigged. Same thing with the debate, the only way he could lose the debate is if it's rigged. I think it has really two-pronged approach and two components to it. Part of it is he gets to work the refs in advance. He gets to make them think twice and maybe go a little easy on him."
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"The second is if Donald Trump, in fact, loses the debate, has already laid the groundwork for saying it was rigged! It was always rigged the whole time!" Lewis said. "Here is the problem. It kind of is rigged. Joe Biden out-maneuvered Donald Trump. The timing of this debate, the rules of this debate, those were all set by Joe Biden because Donald Trump allowed it to happen. Joe Biden's team, I think, really out-smarted and out-maneuvered Donald Trump and, if he goes on to lose, there will be one person to blame -- Donald Trump. I think Republicans, rather than blame the moderators or Mountain Dew, should blame Donald Trump."
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