Trump's advisers are trying to reduce expectations that he'll easily beat Biden in the presidential debates, report says

• President Donald Trump thinks that a series of debates against Joe Biden will offer a chance to reinvigorate his campaign, Axios reported on Sunday.
• The seriousness about preparing for the debates clashes with his claims that Biden is gaffe-prone and in cognitive decline.
• The debates are scheduled for September 29, October 15, and October 22.

President Donald Trump's advisers are telling him not to take victory for granted in the presidential debates with Joe Biden, Axios reported Sunday.

The Trump campaign increasingly sees the three presidential debates scheduled for this fall as a clear chance for the president to reverse the fortunes of his campaign so far, the report said.

Two advisers involved in prepping Trump for the contests — Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, and Jason Miller, a campaign strategist — have pushed back against any signs of complacency, cautioning the president that Biden is "a decent, experienced and relatively disciplined debater," the Axios report said.

The characterization of the debates and seriousness in preparing for them clashes with Trump's and his campaign's frequent claims that Biden's cognitive abilities are fading with age.

In a recent interview with The Washington Post, Miller talked up expectations for Biden, casting him as the favorite to win — while also claiming that Biden would attempt to skip two of the debates.

"Joe Biden is actually a very good debater," Miller told The Post. "He doesn't have as many gaffes as he does in his everyday interviews."

One source told Axios that the president had hammered home the importance of the debates to his advisers as he has trailed Biden in polls during the US's coronavirus outbreak.

Trump "has verbalized how important these are going to be," the source said. "He's said, 'We gotta win. The press will never give me the credit for it, but the people will.'"

The first presidential debate is scheduled for September 29 in Ohio. The second is set for October 15 in Florida and the third for October 22 in Tennessee.

The Commission on Presidential Debates is expected to name its moderators in early September, Axios said. Last week it rejected the Trump campaign's request for another debate to be held in September. The campaign had said the extra debate was necessary to give people a chance to see the president in a head-to-head contest against Biden before early voting begins in some states.