Speech manipulation in the pre-election discourse aims to influence the audience in order to increase the number of the electorate and present their political activities in a more favorable way. This article is devoted to the study of ways to achieve this goal using strategies of self-presentation and discrediting. It is known that the political struggle for power at the stage of debate is carried out mainly through a strategy of discrediting. The task of belittling the opponent's status comes to the fore. Such activity involves a set of certain tactics that help to implement it: from the most common tactics of accusation and ridicule to less frequent tactics of exaggeration and unproven undermining of authority. This analysis demonstrates the variety of tactics used by Donald Trump and Joe Biden in the 2020 political debate as part of a discrediting strategy. The result of the study showed that politicians resort more to tactics of open speech influence, which takes place in offhand speech. In addition, the efficiency of the strategy of discrediting in political discourse was revealed.

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