Nah. It's a valid strategy.
He was performing for his base to continue the me vs the world thing. And at the same time he was also dragging down the debate with his sabotaging of the debate process. He baited Biden quite a bit.
Trump had countless opportunities to crush this debate and he failed miserably. Maybe you're right and it had some impact. Telemundo watchers were resoundingly more favorable to trump which is a huge demographic thst could tilt the race.