President Donald Trump on Tuesday repeated his demand that Democrat Joe Biden take a drug test ahead of the presidential debates to see whether he is “taking something that gives him some clarity.”
“I don’t know which Biden is going to show up because I watched him during the [Democratic] debates, when they had 20 people on the stage … and I watched him and he was a disaster,” Trump said during an interview with “Fox & Friends.” “You don’t get worse. He was grossly incompetent.”
But Trump said that during a one-on-one debate on March 15 between Biden and former Democratic candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Biden was better.
“I watched him against Bernie, he was OK, he wasn’t Winston Churchill, that I can tell you, but he was OK, he was fine,” Trump said.
That has given the president pause.
“What did he do? What happened to him all of a sudden? Because he was OK, it was an extraordinarily boring debate, but he got through it,” Trump said. “And I said, ‘What’s the difference between now and some of those classic moments in the other debates,’ and something was strange in my opinion.”
“I won’t say what, but a lot of people think something happens, but you can’t do that kind of stuff. You just can’t do that kind of stuff,” he said.
Trump said he’d be happy to take a drug test ahead of the debates.
“I would take one, too,” Trump said. “He’s taking something, or taking something that gives him some clarity … Maybe he had 15 cups of coffee.”
“I think he should take a drug test,” the president said. “Joe is lost, Joe is lost. We can’t have a president that is mentally lost.”
The president also said he’s preparing every day for the upcoming debates, the first of which is scheduled to take place in Cleveland, Ohio, on Sept. 29.
“I’ve been all over the place, and I watch this guy sitting home, and I think, maybe I’m doing it wrong,” Trump said, noting that Biden “is always in Wilmington, Delaware.”
Trump said last month he thinks the candidates should be drug tested before the debates, saying “nobody thought” Biden would win the nomination “because his debate performances were so bad.”
“Frankly, his best performance was against Bernie,” Trump said. “And we are going to call for a drug test because there’s no way — you can’t do that.”
Trump also likened the presidential debates to prizefights or old Roman days. “It’s no different from the gladiators, except we have to use our brain and our mouth. And our body to stand. I want all standing; they want to sit down,” he said.
Trump also wanted 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton drug tested, saying in October of that year, “I think we should take a drug test prior to the debate. We should take a drug test prior because I don’t know what’s going on with her.”
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