How Biden and Trump are preparing for their first presidential debate

In some ways, Joe Biden and Donald Trump have similar goals heading into their debate in Atlanta next week. But they diverge when it comes to their preparations.

One is secluding himself at a mountainside retreat with a tight circle of advisers, poring over briefing binders, honing attack lines and bracing for personal smears. The other is workshopping responses and retorts with vice presidential hopefuls, sharpening policy lines while working to rein in his bombastic rhetoric. In some ways, aides to President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump describe similar goals heading into next Thursday’s presidential debate: painting their opponent as presiding over disorder and wholly unfit for office. For two men who have been circling each other rhetorically for the past four years, the debate hosted by CNN in Atlanta amounts to a moment of high consequence. Both candidates are aware of the stakes, officials in both campaigns say, as they huddle with their teams to prepare attacks, form rebuttals and frame the choice of November’s election. Both teams have spent the past weeks working to fine-tune their message on a wide array of issues, from the economy to foreign affairs to their rival’s fitness for office. And each has found themselves distracted in some way: Trump by the criminal trial that consumed his spring and Biden by a stretch of intensive overseas travel and a painful legal saga for his family. Yet the similarities mostly end there. How each man is preparing for the debate is ultimately a microcosm of their differences as candidates, and each will enter the CNN studio with divergent objectives. In prep sessions that have already started, Biden has been focused on ways to hold Trump accountable on the debate stage – mirroring the broader political strategy that his White House and campaign have been deploying for months.