This is correct. And he will do anything, fair or foul, in order to win.
But this isn’t correct, since the debate won’t help him, and he knows it, and those around him certainly know it.
I think that’s the key point of disagreement here. It’s fully plausible, based on Trump’s past behavior, that he thinks he’s invincible in all things. I actually think Trump is cagier than people think about what helps him and what hurts him. Further, it’s also plausible that the people around him are fluffing his ego and his mushroom (lol), but I think his team will discourage him from debating. Let’s deal with both points.
While the number of MAGAs who perceive the degree of his cognitive decline is close to zero, there are still a lot of people on our side who don’t get it either. Trump is coming apart. It’s not just that he will be “beaten” in a debate with Biden; his dementia will be on full display, since he will not be able to control the situation.
Similarly, I don’t think Trump ever intended to testify. He and his lawyers knew that, from a legal perspective, it could only hurt him, but also Trump intuited that he would just look bad. Again, it was a set of circumstances that he couldn’t control.
Consider also why Trump didn’t debate his fellow fascists in the primary race. It’s a political truism that debating helps trailing candidates more. Trump was way ahead in the polls against those clowns, so there was no upside to debating. It was beneath him. Also, the fact that he didn’t debate defeats rather handily, I think, the notion we’ve seen in this thread that Trump grabs all the free airtime he can get.
The same thing applies in a debate with Biden. Trump is not behind in the polls (which I think are bullshit, but it’s not crazy for Trump to think he’s neck and neck with his opponent). So in terms of upside for Trump, at best it’s a wash. But the GOP narrative about Biden is that he’s a doddering old man who can barely put a sentence together. So it’s not just about “winning” the debate; Trump absolutely has to appear in better cognitive shape than Biden. Trump intuits and his advisors know that that’s a tall order. Even in the case that neither candidate shows signs of poor cognitive health, that harms the GOP myth of Biden’s infirmity, which is definitely one of their most important weapons against them. But in the case of Trump doing poorly while Biden does well, it’s a disaster for Trump. The risk-reward calculation is not in any way in Trump’s favor.
As for the second point about sycophants, I think there’s another misunderstanding here. While there are morons like MTG who are genuine true believers in Trump, most of the GOP polls support him out of a self-interested desire to stay and (in the GOP sense) succeed in politics. His campaign advisors want him to win, first and foremost. Sure, they can’t oppose Trump and his idiotic whims too much, but they are going to be working on a more or less rational basis. Do you think they think that debating Biden would be good for Trump? I sure don’t.
I guess that’s another thing to nail down: Do most of us here agree that debate would be good for Biden and bad for Trump? That’s my impression.