Donald Trump always fancied himself streetwise, a real tough guy, and at the first presidential debate with Joe Biden next week he’ll be wearing the verbal brass knuckles.
Trump, 74, is not a leader comfortable with the soaring rhetoric of JFK or Ronald Reagan. He’s not one for the nuanced elegance that fans loved — and detractors saw as aloofness — in the speeches of Barack Obama.
This is a president who brought reality TV skills to the White House. He’s an entertainer whose style is inspired by the gaudy chaos of professional wrestling.
And he’s a New Yorker who mimics the wise-guy argot of mafia movies and loves to hang out with boxers and MMA athletes.
So don’t expect subtlety at his first-of-three socially distanced clashes with Biden on Tuesday in Cleveland.
Last Saturday, he gleefully compared the debate to an…