Air Force One is mostly grounded. Fundraisers are canceled. And the closest thing to a campaign rally is President Donald Trump’s nightly coronavirus briefing.
The president’s reelection campaign has been thoroughly upended by the coronavirus. But Trump’s team has a plan to quickly define Joe Biden, painting the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee as a Washington lifer, focusing on his links to China and insinuating that he is mentally unfit for the job.
Though the nation is fixated on the White House’s response to the pandemic, the Trump campaign is prioritizing attacks on Biden rather than selling the president’s handling of the crisis. Worried about declines in support in several battleground states, the campaign is using its hefty bank account to try to drive down Biden’s standing by hammering his ties Beijing and, soon, reviving accusations that the former vice president and his son are corrupt.
“This is a referendum on how the president handles the pandemic,” said Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist. “It’s about making clear that Joe Biden is the worst possible guy for this time.”
The playbook was written months ago — and it’s finally being put into motion.
The Trump campaign spent the first months of 2020 deploying its extensive social media outreach and some of the more than $170 million at its disposal to pummel his Democratic opponent. The shock-and-awe plan would be similar to the one President Barack Obama’s team executed in the spring of 2012, when it portrayed Mitt Romney as a heartless corporate raider, a label the Republican challenger never shook.
The campaign initially sought to define Biden as a corrupt Beltway insider after spending 40 years in Washington. But when COVID-19 reached America’s shores after ravaging China, campaign advisers decided to prioritize scorching Biden for his ties and past comments regarding that country.
The campaign hopes the move will tie Biden more closely to the pandemic, while also reinforcing his past support of free trade deals, which are unpopular in swaths of the Midwest that will be critical battlegrounds during the general election.
A scathing ad ran on television and on Facebook. America First Action, the principal super PAC behind Trump’s reelection effort, spent $10 million on ads in swing states juxtaposing old clips of Biden speaking favorably about China with allegations that Beijing “stole American manufacturing and hoarded our emergency stockpile.” And the message was amplified by conservative commentators on Fox News and other outlets.
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“The American people understood that we are in a hot information and economic war with China,” said Bannon, who hosts a radio show airing on conservative networks. “Biden was empowered and trusted by President Obama on his ‘pivot to Asia’ to handle China. He failed. The exacerbation of the problem with China came under Joe Biden’s watch.”
The Trump campaign touted the president’s January decision to restrict travel from China and his recent criticism of Beijing’s lack of transparency about the outbreak.
“On the other hand, Joe Biden has a big problem with China. Our internal data shows that Joe Biden’s softness on China is a major vulnerability, among many,” said Tim Murtaugh, the Trump campaign’s senior communications director.
Some in Trump’s orbit, including senior adviser Kellyanne Conway, have argued against the China attacks in favor of highlighting the president’s leadership of the recovery. And Trump himself was presented with ads making that attack, which were slated to run in a major media buy, but held off giving the authorization.
The Biden campaign has responded by pointing to inconsistencies in the president’s handling of China and the Wuhan virus pandemic.
China isn’t the only front from which the Trump campaign has levied assaults.
Twitter accounts run by the campaign and its allies have repeatedly shown clips of the 77-year-old Biden mixing up names and dates in interviews in an effort to suggest he’s not up for the job, an implication pushed by the 73-year-old Trump with his “Sleepy Joe” moniker.
Moreover, some Republicans are eager to recycle Trump’s 2016 playbook, when he depicted Hillary Clinton as a Washington insider looking to enrich herself, by making similar accusations against Biden and his son Hunter for the younger man’s highly controversial work in Ukraine and China.
“The Trump campaign has the upper hand during this part of the cycle to define Biden, and if they are not doing that now, they are wasting critical time,” said Sam Nunberg, a former Trump campaign adviser. “Biden wants to portray himself as the loyal public servant of many years who worked on behalf of the American people. Hunter Biden’s profiteering off his father shows cronyism and is fair game.”
Trump’s campaign is deeply concerned about several key states, particularly Florida, Wisconsin, and Michigan. But Trump’s public approval rating has remained consistent nationally throughout his presidency, and his unique brand of politics could once again overcome hurdles that would sink other presidents seeking reelection, especially if the pandemic wanes or the economy rebounds.
“I think when push comes to shove and we come to November [Trump’s] going to be in a very good place,” Brad Parscale, Trump’s campaign manager, said in a recent appearance on Fox News’ “The Story.”
“Americans are going to see that he’s not only protecting their safety with very low deaths and protecting the American people, that he’s going to bring the economy back in a roaring way and I think it’s going to be a successful election for him in November.”
“I’m going to tell you something,” Parscale said. “Joe Biden is no Hillary Clinton.”
The Associated Press contributed to this article