In reality? None that I'm aware of. I'm not sure what his strategy is. CNN + Leftist moderators pretty much guarantees a completely lopsided "debate", so maybe PJDT wants to make that imbalance as blatant and obvious as possible?
I had the same thought, although I expressed it (in my mind) a little differently.
Saul Alinsky Rules for Radicals, #11, to wit:
"If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside; this is based on the principle that every positive has its negative."