Trump steps up and helps Biden exactly when the president needs him
If anyone gets a thank you note from President Biden for getting him out of trouble in recent days, it should probably be former President Donald J. Trump.
Just as Mr. Biden was bombarded with unwanted questions about his age, his predecessor and challenger stepped in and saved him with an ill-timed tirade in which he promised to “encourage” Russia to attack NATO allies who are not spending enough on their militaries .
Mr. Trump's stunner this weekend not only drew attention away from the president's memory problems, as detailed in a special counsel report, but also provided Mr. Biden's defenders with a handy way to reframe the issue: yes, they could now say The sitting president may be an old man who sometimes forgets things, but his challenger is both older and dangerously reckless.
It wasn't the first time, and probably not the last, that Trump stepped up when an opponent was in trouble to create an escape route with an ill-considered howler of his own. Trump's lifelong thirst for attention has often clashed with his apparent importance. For Mr Biden, that could be key to this year's campaign, banking on his opponent's inability to remain silent at critical moments and hoping he continues to remind voters why they rejected him in 2020.
“There is a saying that the enemy of your enemy is your friend,” said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist who worked on the 2016 presidential campaign of Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who lost the party nomination to Mr. Trump that year. “Since Trump is his own worst enemy, he may be Biden's best friend.”
That does not mean age is no longer a political liability for Mr. Biden, who at 81 is already the oldest president in American history and would be 86 at the end of a second term. Although Trump is right behind him at age 77, the special counsel's characterization of the president as a “well-meaning older man with a poor memory” proved distressing and damaging.
A new poll from ABC News and Ipsos The report released Sunday found that 86 percent of Americans think Biden is too old to serve another term as president, while 62 percent think Mr. Trump is too old.
But in Washington, the traditional political strategy, when under fire, is to change the subject as quickly as possible. Mr. Biden's team wanted to make the real issue not his own capacity, but the conduct of the special counsel, Robert K. Hur, just as former presidents such as Mr. Trump and Bill Clinton have tried to shift attention from the allegations against them to the prosecutors who investigated them.
White House surrogates and friends flooded the airwaves in the days that followed to attack Mr. Hur for citing the president's inability to remember key dates, including the year of his son Beau's death. In a fundraising appeal, Jill Biden, the first lady, denounced Mr. Hur's “inaccurate and personal political attacks on Joe,” then asked supporters for money. The pushback may not convince voters who were already against Biden, but it did give Democrats something else to talk about.
Trump played directly into the Biden camp's strategy at a rally in South Carolina on Saturday, castigating “delinquent” NATO members and saying that not only would he not come to his defense if attacked by the Russians, but that he would also encourage the Russians. “to do whatever they want” against such allies.
“Donald Trump can't do anything about it,” said Rodell Mollineau, a Democratic strategist and partner at ROKK Solutions. “He will always try to keep the focus on him, even if it is not to his advantage. I expect many more hold-my-beer moments from Trump before this election is over.”
Nikki Haley, the former UN ambassador and governor of South Carolina, who is still trying to wrest the Republican nomination from front-runner Trump, used that tendency to reinforce her argument that the party should not trust him to lead to take. victory this fall.
'That's what you're going to get: unhinged chaos' Ms. Haley said on Fox News. “And that only makes Joe Biden healthy,” she added. If Donald Trump makes Joe Biden sound sane, that is mainly why Donald Trump cannot beat Joe Biden. They're going to take everything he says and use it against him.”
Mr. Biden's camp tried to do just that. The White House issued a statement saying that “encouraging invasions of our closest allies by murderous regimes is abhorrent and unhinged.” In a separate statement from his campaign, Mr. Biden said Mr. Trump's comments were “predictable, coming from a man who promises to rule as a dictator like the one he praises on day one when he returns to the Oval Office. ” On social media, he referred to Mr. Trump as one of Russian President Vladimir V. Putin 'useful lackeys.'
Robert Gibbs, President Barack Obama's former White House press secretary, said the latest episode proved Trump was unable to live up to an old political adage: “If your opponent is having a bad day, just get out of the way.” and let it happen.”
For Mr. Biden, he said, such out-of-the-blue opportunities could prove decisive. “The agility of the president and his team to deliver those moments will perhaps be one of the most important determining factors in who wins this race.”