syracuse, new york
CNN
—
President Joe Biden may not say much about his Republican challenger’s criminal trial, but Donald Trump looked irritated, tired, and himself as he sat in a Manhattan courtroom. The president still finds much to say about his rival – according to his declaration it was freezing cold.
The Trump Bible he’s selling? “I almost bought it because I wanted to know what was in it,” he said this week in Florida.
Will President Trump’s Truth Social stock price fall? “He might do better with my tax plan than he does,” Biden deadpanned in Pennsylvania.
Is President Trump thinking about injecting bleach during the coronavirus era? “He missed. It was all in his hair,” he told a crowd of builders in Washington.
Certainly, a case that involves hush-money payments to an adult film star at its heart has plenty of punch lines. Mr. Biden has carefully avoided these issues and has no intention of changing his approach anytime soon.
Instead, Mr. Biden is looking for other ways to stab Mr. Trump while juggling a robust schedule of policy speeches and campaign events, all within the self-imposed line of providing continuous court commentary. The idea was to build on its predecessor without going overboard.
Campaign officials are well aware that the Trump trial could dominate news coverage in the coming weeks. Mr. Biden has been looking for breakthroughs, including high-profile endorsements from the Kennedy family and a trip to Florida to give a speech on abortion rights.
On Thursday, Biden will be in Syracuse, New York, to tout a new $6 billion investment in Micron made possible by the Chips and Science Act, just the kind of policy direction Biden has been promoting over the past year. The results are the same.
Some Biden supporters say gaining attention in the former U.S. president’s first criminal trial will be difficult for the incumbent, already plagued by a lack of enthusiasm among Democrats and battling a lack of knowledge in his first term. Some people complain that they are deaf. Achievement.
But ultimately, many on Biden’s team believe their schedules will successfully advance the contrasts presented to voters this election.
Even those who sometimes criticize Mr. Biden’s campaign strategy find no fault with his approach to Mr. Trump’s trial.
“I don’t think he should be involved in the details of Mr. Trump’s trial,” said David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama and a senior political commentator for CNN.
“But it’s an opportunity for him to go out and talk about the future and talk about contrasts on substantive issues. And ultimately the message that worked for him was, ‘I’m looking at your future.’ I think that’s what it means. He’s focused on his past, and that’s very much reflected in what’s happening now,” Axelrod said on CNN’s Dana Bash’s “Inside Politics.”
Trials of former presidents have not completely disappeared from Biden’s daily life. On Wednesday, as Mr. Biden prepared to receive an endorsement from the construction unions of North America, an image of Mr. Trump was played on video and the crowd erupted into chants of “lock him up.”
The Biden campaign has used the trial in multiple pun-filled statements in recent days to present a sharp contrast between the president and his Republican rivals, including Biden’s Pennsylvania blitz last week and Contrast that with Trump (or “Sleepy” as they call him). Activities.
“The verdict is in, but the self-inflicted wounds of Donald Trump and his campaign have not gone unpunished.” Biden campaign spokesman James Singer said in a statement Friday that he will not be campaigning and will not be spending any money. He said their strategy of wasting money, acting like petty time thugs and pushing extreme policies is alienating voters.
And it’s not as if Biden is wary of getting personal, as his comments about Trump’s business, Bible and hair suggest.
Still, addressing Trump’s legal problems directly is seen as a risky proposition, potentially giving pretext to the former president’s false claims that Biden is behind multiple indictments and criminal proceedings.
And in any case, some Biden advisers argue that November’s election is likely to be decided on issues such as the economy and abortion, rather than the Republican candidate’s complex legal predicament.
It is this perspective that has largely driven the president’s schedule as his first criminal trial begins. Biden will visit four states during the first two weeks of his hearing, touting policies on clean energy, reproductive rights and manufacturing.
Biden’s campaign and White House advisers said they expected a robust schedule in the coming weeks, with Trump’s trial expected to last until mid-June in a lower Manhattan courtroom.
On Tuesday, Biden headed to Tampa, Florida, President Trump’s metaphorical backyard, to grill Republicans on abortion. The trip followed swings through battleground state Pennsylvania during the court’s jury selection and Virginia on the first day of Mr. Trump’s trial.
Campaign officials described the strategy as a continuation of the course Biden has been on for months, pounding the pavement as his rivals make noise on social media.
“There’s no need to do anything out of the ordinary,” a campaign source told CNN, comparing the candidates’ different schedules in March, before the trial began. “That implicit contrast is already there.”
While the White House prefers to make a visual statement, in aides’ parlance, “split screen,” campaigns are sending sharply worded messages, withdrawing from campaign activities, and falling behind on 2020 fundraising standards. He is criticizing President Trump.
Behind the scenes, campaign staffers are using the weeks-long trial to recalibrate, plan and strategize from the spring through November, one person said. And White House and campaign officials say there is no formal approach to converting the pilot into a strategy, with no war room, no daily memos, and no staff tasked with keeping a police inspector at Pennsylvania 1600. He also says that he does not inform the election headquarters about daily events.
Instead, they watch the news unfold on television and follow suit, just like other Americans.
