Trump says he's 'strongly demanding' Biden is drug tested ahead of their first presidential debate
Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images; Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
- President Donald Trump on Sunday tweeted that he was "strongly demanding" Democratic nominee Joe Biden take a "Drug Test" either before or after Tuesday's first presidential debate.
- "Naturally, I will agree to take one also," the president tweeted. "His Debate performances have been record setting UNEVEN, to put it mildly."
- Trump has previously speculated, without evidence, that Biden had taken drugs to improve his performance at the Democratic Party's primary debates.
- In 2016, Trump also floated the unfounded accusations that then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton had used drugs to improve her performance at a debate.
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President Donald Trump on Sunday said is "strongly demanding" the Democratic nominee Joe Biden take a drug test ahead of this week's first presidential debate.
"I will be strongly demanding a Drug Test of Sleepy Joe Biden prior to, or after, the Debate on Tuesday night," Trump tweeted Sunday. "Naturally, I will agree to take one also. His Debate performances have been record setting UNEVEN, to put it mildly. Only drugs could have caused this discrepancy???"
The Biden campaign did not immediately return Business Insider's request for comment on Sunday.
The president has previously accused the former vice president of taking performance-enhancing drugs. In an interview with Fox News earlier in September, Trump also offered similar unfounded speculation that Biden had taken drugs to improve his performance at the Democratic Party's primary debates.
"I think there's probably – possibly – drugs involved," Trump told Fox News host Jeanine Pirro. "That's what I hear. I mean, there's possibly drugs. I don't know how you can go from being so bad where you can't even get out a sentence.
"You saw some of those debates with a large number of people on the stage," Trump added. "He was, I mean, I used to say, 'How is it possible that he can go forward?'"
In an August interview with the Washington Examiner, Trump likewise suggested — without evidence — that Biden's debate performance was influenced by drugs and that he would require Biden take a drug test prior to the first debate.
"Nobody thought that he was even going to win," Trump told the conservative news outlet. "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."
He added: "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."
In 2016, Trump made similar accusations against then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, also suggesting both he and Clinton take a drug test ahead of the final debate before the 2016 election.