The author of a new book about Donald Trump on Tuesday highlighted what he believes was “so disturbing” about the former president’s first 2024 presidential debate against President Joe Biden, which CNN hosted last week.
And it wasn’t Biden’s faltering performance that has sparked calls from newspapers and prominent Democrats for him to quit the race.
“Apprentice in Wonderland” writer Ramin Setoodeh, an editor at Variety, told MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace that Biden’s widely-panned turn on the stage meant “we didn’t get to see the real Donald Trump” because the presumptive GOP presidential nominee “retreated” and “kind of held back.”
“Trump is very skilled,” said Setoodeh, who for his book interviewed Trump six times following his 2020 election defeat.
Trump has “gone into the boardroom and when someone is self-imploding or self-destructing, and I could see it in Donald Trump’s eyes, he could see that he didn’t need to do much and so he held back and we didn’t get to the see the real Donald Trump,” he added.