The terms of the premature primary debate of the general presidential election are about as favorable to Joe Biden as the president could possibly demand. The debate, hosted by CNN’s Dana Bash and Jake Tapper on Thursday night, will be closed to the public and feature an unprecedented two commercial breaks. Unlike past debates that were regulated by the Commission on Presidential Debates, CNN has unilateral control of the first rematch between Biden and former President Donald Trump, refusing other networks in the White House press pool the ability to cover the debate from within the arena, and the network will reportedly delay airing the live debate by at least a minute rather than the customary few seconds, theoretically granting it the power to edit or pull clips from the debate feed. And yet, Biden’s team is patently terrified. The president has been whisked away from public view for the better part of a week, bunkered down in Camp David with a debate team grilling him as though he were the unemployed outsider challenging an incumbent rather than the sitting leader of the free world. Despite Biden’s weakness in late-night spotlights like Thursday’s showdown, his team is spending $50 million on ads to build up the brouhaha before the event and brand Trump a convicted felon.

Biden’s team isn’t acting like they have high expectations for their octogenarian candidate, and given his record, he’s unlikely to surpass them. The only reason his campaign agreed to Trump’s gambit to blow off the autumn debate season in favor of this affair in Atlanta is desperation. His team is desperate to do anything to reframe the narrative because, as it stands today, Trump is clearly winning the election in a quantifiable way never seen during either the 2016 or 2020 general elections.