While Vice President Joe Biden remains mum on his Republican opponent’s criminal prosecution, President Donald Trump, who is sitting in a Manhattan courtroom looking annoyed, exhausted, and, according to his own statement, icy cold, finds much to say about his opponent.
The Trump volumes he’s peddling? “I nearly wanted to purchase one simply to discover its contents,” he remarked this week in Florida.
Falling value of Trump’s Truth Social stock? It was Biden who deadpanned, “He might do better under my tax plan than his,” in Pennsylvania.
Trump’s thoughts on injecting bleach during the COVID-22 pandemic? “He failed to make contact. For him, “it all went to his hair,” he informed a gathering of Washington-based builders.
A trial involving an adult film star’s hush money payment certainly has its share of jokes. Biden has been avoiding them like the plague and has no plans to change his tune.
Along with his packed schedule of policy speeches and campaign activities, Biden is also finding new ways to poke fun at Trump, all in an effort to irritate his predecessor without going overboard with his self-imposed limitations on offering continuous trial commentary.
Officials within the Trump campaign are well aware that the trial could take up most of the media’s attention in the coming weeks. A prominent endorsement from the Kennedy family and a trip to Florida to give a speech on abortion rights are just two examples of Biden’s efforts to gain attention.
The kind of policy-minded achievement that Biden has spent the last year advocating for will be on full display Thursday in Syracuse, New York, when he will tout a new $6 billion investment in Micron, made possible by the CHIPS and Science Act.
Even though the incumbent is already facing a lack of support from Democrats and confusion over his first term’s achievements, some of Biden’s supporters are concerned that the first-ever criminal trial of a sitting US president will take attention away from him.
Nevertheless, a large portion of Biden’s staff is of the opinion that the schedules of the two candidates will effectively highlight the contrast that has been shown to voters throughout this year.
When it comes to Biden’s handling of the Trump trial, not even his most ardent detractors have found fault.
David Axelrod, a senior political pundit for HEADLINESFOREVER and a former senior advisor to President Barack Obama, stated, “I don’t think he should be involving himself in the details of” Trump’s trial.
However, this is a chance for him to address the future and the difference on important subjects by becoming public with his thoughts. In the end, I believe that saying “I’m focused on your future” will resonate with him. According to Axelrod, who spoke with Dana Bash of HEADLINESFOREVER on “Inside Politics,” the current situation is a direct result of his fixation on his history.
Delicately navigating
Even in Biden’s day-to-day life, the trial of the former president has made an appearance. When a video featuring Trump appeared on Wednesday, the audience erupted in yells of “Lock him up” as Biden was about to receive an endorsement from the North American Building Trades Unions.
Using the trial as a springboard, Biden’s team has made a number of pun-filled remarks in the past few days, drawing comparisons between the president and his Republican opponent. For instance, they have compared Biden’s recent blitz in Pennsylvania to Trump’s (or “Sleepy Don”) actions.
The results are in, and Donald Trump and his campaign’s wounds that he intentionally caused are not paying off. Officials from the Biden campaign, according to a statement released by James Singer on Friday, are alienating voters with their approach of inaction, wastefulness, and extremism.
Not that Biden is shy about getting down to brass tacks; his remarks regarding Trump’s businesses, Bibles, and hairstyle are indicative of that.
However, it is considered a risky move to lend credence to the former president’s baseless accusations that Biden is responsible for Trump’s numerous indictments and criminal cases by explicitly commenting on his legal matters.
Some of Biden’s advisors maintain that the economy and abortion, rather than the Republican nominee’s complicated legal situation, will decide the election in November.
While the trial was underway
As the first criminal trial of Trump begins, it is that perspective that has primarily influenced the president’s schedule. Biden will have visited four states in the first two weeks of the proceedings, promoting his programs on renewable energy, reproductive rights, and manufacturing.
The trial of Trump is expected to drag on in a lower Manhattan courthouse until mid-June, according to Biden advisers from the campaign and the White House. The busy schedule will carry over into the next weeks.
To hit Republicans on the issue of abortion, Biden traveled to Tampa, Florida on Tuesday. This city is often seen as Trump’s symbolic backyard. The journey came after stops in Pennsylvania, a key battleground, during jury selection and Virginia, the site of Trump’s trial’s opening day.
According to a campaign official, Biden will continue his approach of pounding the ground while his opponent vents on social media, something he has been doing for months.
Campaign officials told HEADLINESFOREVER, “We don’t have to do anything out of the ordinary” when asked about the candidates’ calendars in March, before the trial started, and they compared them. “That underlying contrast is present.”
In contrast to the White House’s preference to let the visual “split-screen,” as officials put it, do the talking, the campaign has been sending out strongly written missives criticizing Trump for his absence from campaigning and his failure to meet his 2020 fundraising goals.
Officials are quietly preparing for the spring through November by recalibrating, planning, and strategizing during the trial period, which lasts for weeks. There is reportedly no war room, daily memos, or staff members assigned to keeping the brass at 1600 Pennsylvania and campaign headquarters informed of each day’s events in order to formalize the process of distilling trial developments into strategy.
On the contrary, they’re following along by watching the coverage on television, just like the rest of the American people.