President Biden is stepping up his mocking of former President Trump in an attempt to remind voters about the 45th president’s flaws and personal issues.
Just this week, Biden taunted Trump as shares of his media company fell sharply on the stock market. He also poked fun at Trump over needing money to pay enormous penalties and legal fees. And Biden also won’t let Trump slide for suggesting Americans inject bleach during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The president may be seeing some success in stepping up the rhetoric, with his recent poll numbers appearing to somewhat recover, including some that show him tied with Trump overall.
A Decision Desk HQ/The Hill average of polls now shows Biden and Trump running neck and neck with about 45 percent support each. And the president’s approval rating finally ticked up to a five-month high Monday.
Democratic strategist Jim Kessler said the strategy will help highlight the stark contrasts between Biden and Trump come November — and also stick it to the former president in a way that hits home.
“Certainly the Biden team needs to remind voters of the chaos and fecklessness of the Trump years, because memories are short and need refreshing. They need a reminder of how tired they were of Trump’s antics and pettiness, because for most voters he has only been on the periphery over the past year,” said Kessler, executive vice president for policy at Third Way.
“Trump reacts poorly to ridicule. It’s his Achilles’ heel. There’s a reason vanity is one of the seven deadly sins,” Kessler added.
Biden has been on a spree of mocking Trump lately on stops ranging from White House events to campaign receptions, sometimes using recent news about the former president to drop a zinger.
“I have to say, if Trump’s stock in the Truth Social — his company — drops any lower, he might do better under my tax plan than his,” Biden said after Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social, suffered steep losses in the stock market.
While in his hometown of Scranton, Pa., Biden repeated a joke he has used at campaign receptions since Trump has racked enormous penalties in two civil fraud cases and legal fees for representation in a host of those and other cases.
“I’ve already been delivering real results in a fiscally responsible way. But I know not everyone is feeling it,” he said. “Just the other day, a defeated-looking guy came up to me and asked if I could help. He was drowning in debt. I said, ‘I’m sorry, Donald, but I can’t help you.’”
He made a Scranton crowd laugh when he reminded them of Trump’s COVID-19 suggestions during the height of the pandemic.
“Remember when he told us, literally, inject bleach?” the president said. “Bless me, Father.”
Biden and the White House go to great lengths to not weigh in on Trump’s court troubles, but the president appeared to slightly crack that door open in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, during the week that Trump’s first criminal trial had begun.
“So far, we’ve created 15 million … new jobs, a record in a term of a president; 492,000 new jobs so far in Pennsylvania alone,” he said. “Under my predecessor — who’s busy right now — Pennsylvania lost 275,000 jobs.”
Trump spent the two days prior in a New York City courtroom during a monotonous jury selection process for his hush money case. He is facing 34 counts of falsifying business records of reimbursements to his then-fixer, Michael Cohen, who paid porn actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 just before the 2016 election to stay quiet about an alleged affair with Trump.
The Biden campaign also attempted to elevate Trump’s hush money case in a convoluted email to supporters Monday night: “Wake Up Donald: After Stormy Abortion Ban Coverage, Trump Poll Memo Attempts to Hush Panic.” The email argues that Trump’s campaign is in panic mode over abortion since Arizona reverted back to a centuries-old law making it a felony.
The campaign jabbed at Trump’s ability to attract donors Wednesday after an analysis of federal data showed his campaign is lagging behind its 2020 pace in terms of money and individual donors. It called Trump “too lazy” and “too toxic.”
Last month, the campaign tested the waters with being more aggressive in its mocking of Trump’s financial woes, lobbing attacks at his lagging fundraising numbers. The Biden team dubbed Trump “Broke Don” to highlight at the time that Trump had a war chest of $42 million in cash on hand.
Some Democrats see the strategy working but they also contend it is typical of the president — who is simply just being himself.
“This is classic Joe Biden. And remember — he’s the only person, Republican or Democrat, who’s ever beaten Trump. President Biden has a knack for getting under Trump’s skin, and he’s running with it,” Jim Messina, former President Obama’s 2012 campaign manager, told The Hill.