Donald Trump seems a little wary of what his running mate is waltzing into.
The 45th president swiped at Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s intellect but cautioned that his running mate, JD Vance, could be forced to reckon with a “rigged” debate on Tuesday night.
“They’re so rigged and so stacked. You’ll see it tomorrow with JD — it’ll be stacked,” Trump, 78, told Kellyanne Conway, his former White House adviser and 2016 campaign manager, during a Fox Nation interview Tuesday night.
“He’s going up against a moron. A total moron. How she picked him is unbelievable. And I think it’s a big factor. There’s something wrong with that guy. He’s sick. There’s never been a time in our country when people wanted change so badly,” he added.
Vance, 40, similarly suggested at a recent Michigan rally that “the moderators may very well be biased.”
On Monday, Trump juxtaposed “Brilliant J.D. Vance” with “the Highly Inarticulate ‘Tampon’ Tim Walz” in a Truth Social post, where he vowed to give a play-by-play of the debate.
“I hope that Cognitively Challenged, Lyin’ Kamala Harris, will be listening so that she can again show the World how she will make up false facts and stories in order to change around an administrative FAILURE,” Trump wrote.
Still, both campaigns have sought to temper expectations going into the vice presidential debate, which will take place in the CBS Broadcast Center in New York City.
Walz, 60, has said he is “nervous” about the debate, while the Trump-Vance campaign stressed that he is a formidable rival.
“Tim Walz is very good in debates. Really good,” senior Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller underscored on a call with reporters Monday.
“He’ll be very well prepared for tomorrow night. He’s not going to be the wildly gesticulating effeminate caricature we see at rallies pointing to Kamala Harris and dancing about on the stage. Walz is going to be buttoned up.”
Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate is the first and last one currently scheduled between the two presidential campaigns.
Trump had crowned himself the winner of his Sept. 10 debate against Vice President Kamala Harris but raged against the moderators for fact-checking him. He then ruled out another debate.
Harris, 59, had used that debate to goad him into tangents by poking at his crowd sizes and making jabs intended to rile him up.
Conway, 57, has publicly nudged Trump to agree to another verbal sparring match against Harris, but he has so far refused. However, the Republican nominee appeared to soften his tune during his interview with her Monday.
“I would love to have two or three more debates — I like it, I enjoy it, but they’re so rigged and so stacked,” he told her.
