Donald Trump has been disciplined in advance of the presidential debate in Atlanta on Thursday despite the nonchalance he's giving off.
New York Times' Maggie Haberman has learned that the 45th president is far from coasting through his preparation.
"Trump is definitely been preparing for this debate," Haberman told CNN's Wolff Blitzer on "The Situation Room." "Although for the most part, he's been preparing in ways that are different than President Biden has."
Want more breaking political news? Click for the latest headlines at Raw Story.
ALSO READ: Rep. Byron Donalds, his gigantic Jim Crow myth and a forgotten fact about Black voters
"President Biden has holed up at Camp David with a number of advisers, while Trump has largely, although not exclusively, done policy time — where they have him go over aspects of his record and things that [he] wants to focus on."
Haberman sees a poker pregame playing out with Biden wanting to "raise expectations for Trump" by seeing through some of the public moxie that is discounting the rematch.
After all, Trump told The Washington Examiner: “It’s very hard to prepare. You’ve got to know this stuff from years of doing it. And I know all the leaders, and I know what I know. It’s largely based on common sense."
"Common sense is not to allow people to come into our country by the millions if you have no idea where they’re from. … I don’t know, I think debating is an attitude more than anything else.”
Besides the easy, breezy demeanor for Trump in terms of his readiness, he and his camp have been laying the groundwork to prepare for a debate dumpster fire.
They've already begun to cast suspicion about the neutrality of CNN moderators Dana Bash and Jake Tapper and accused Biden of needing a bump of cocaine to compete, and even demanded he take a drug test.
A Biden campaign official accused Trump of making a “transparent” attempt to push the blame on everyone but himself should he come up short.
“When Trump feels he might lose, he sets that permission structure to create excuses for himself. ... He likes to throw a tantrum,” the official said.
Haberman is convinced that the Biden team expects his Republican rival to come to the debate having been more deliberate and diligent than he's given off.
"I think that the Biden team wants to raise expectations for Trump by pointing out how much prep he has done and I think that's what that suspicion of theirs is about."