Trump calls for drug tests before Biden debate

President Trump says he will call for drug tests for both former Vice President Joe Biden and himself before the first candidates' debate on Sept. 29. In an Oval Office interview Wednesday, the president expressed suspicion at what he said was a sudden, marked improvement in Biden's debate performance during the Democratic primary season and suggested that he believes the improvement was the result of drugs. The president offered no evidence to support his speculation.

Biden took part in 11 debates during the primary season. Most were against a crowded field of candidates, but the final debate, on March 15, was just Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders. The president claimed to see a big difference between the last debate and those that came before.

"Nobody thought that he was even going to win," Trump said. "Because his debate performances were so bad. Frankly, his best performance was against Bernie. We're going to call for a drug test, by the way, because his best performance was against Bernie. It wasn't that he was Winston Churchill because he wasn't, but it was a normal, boring debate. You know, nothing amazing happened. And we are going to call for a drug test because there's no way — you can't do that."

Q: "What do you think was going on?"

"I don't know how he could have been so incompetent in his debate performances and then all of a sudden be OK against Bernie," Trump answered. "My point is, if you go back and watch some of those numerous debates, he was so bad. He wasn't even coherent. And against Bernie, he was. And we're calling for a drug test."

Q: "Is this like a prizefight, where beforehand you have a test?"

"Well, it is a prizefight," Trump answered. "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."

Trump based his call entirely on his own observations and not on any actual knowledge of Biden's actions. "All I can tell you is that I'm pretty good at this stuff," he said. "I look. I watched him in the debates with all of the different people. He was close to incompetent, if not incompetent, and against Bernie, he was normal ... and I say, 'How does that happen?'"

The first Trump-Biden debate, to be held at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, is little more than a month away. Trump gave no indication of when he would make his drug test request or to whom, but he appeared to know that there is little chance such a thing would happen. "I think it's appropriate," Trump said. "I don't know that they'll let me do it, but I think that they should do it."

"Go back and watch his performances in some of those debates," Trump continued. "He didn't know where he was. And all of a sudden, he was not good, he was normal, and I don't understand how. I don't know if there is or not, but somebody said to me, 'He must be on drugs.' I don't know if that's true or not, but I'm asking for a drug test. Both candidates. Me, too. I take an aspirin a day."

Trump made a similar call with Hillary Clinton in 2016 after their second debate. In October of that year, Trump said, "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." There were no drug tests during those debates.