Move over, “Sleepy Joe.” President Trump’s campaign is increasingly painting the presumptive Democratic nominee as “Beijing Biden,” and “Crooked, Swampy Joe” may not be too far behind.
But Sleepy, Swampy, and Crooked are not a reprise of the seven dwarfs. Joe Biden has now accumulated a number of scandals, ranging from his son Hunter’s business dealings with China, a country on which the candidate himself is seen as soft, to the Tara Reade sexual assault allegations. The latest revelation is that as vice president, Biden was informed of the “unmasking” requests concerning then-incoming national security adviser Michael Flynn, something he had previously denied.
Trumpworld is packaging all these hits together into one cohesive case against Biden that is reminiscent of its successful 2016 campaign against Hillary Clinton. Its argument is that the Democratic standard-bearer is a longtime district insider and swamp creature running against Trump the disruptor.
“If you smell the stink of the D.C. swamp, it’s because it’s all over Joe Biden,” said Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh. “His family has enriched itself thanks to his positions of power, he thinks he doesn’t have to play by the same rules as everyone else, and he’s up to his eyeballs in the plot to take down the Trump administration through the Russia collusion hoax. And every time someone asks him about it, he gets confused and loses his temper. The D.C. establishment got the candidate they wanted in Joe Biden, and so did China.”
Trump has personally joined in these attacks. “These people were corrupt. The whole thing was corrupt. And we caught them. We caught them,” he told Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo in an interview that aired Thursday. “And what you saw just now. I watched Biden yesterday. He could barely speak. He was on Good Morning America, right? And he said he didn’t know anything about it.”
This focus on the disparate allegations against Biden seeks to drive up the former vice president’s negatives and blunt certain lines of attack against Trump, such as the women who have accused him of misconduct or the Trump-Russia controversies dating back to the last election. The latter also gives new relevance to Trump’s efforts to dismantle his predecessor’s legacy: Much of the case for Biden revolves around his service under Barack Obama, remembered in some circles as a “no drama” president whose biggest scandal was wearing a light-brown suit.
“This was all Obama. This was all Biden,” Trump said, referring to the case against his former subordinate Flynn, which the Justice Department recently asked to drop.
Strategists in both parties believe Trump fares best in an election that is seen as a binary choice between the president and an opponent who carries all the baggage of the Democratic Party circa 2020 plus some of his own, rather than a direct referendum on the incumbent.
“Trump doesn’t have to become popular,” said a Democratic consultant. “He has to try to be less unpopular than Biden.” That’s how Trump won four years ago despite having a 60% unfavorable rating on Election Day.
The question is whether anyone who isn’t already convinced is paying attention during the coronavirus pandemic, which has shone a bright spotlight on Trump while allowing Biden to campaign intermittently from the safety of his basement. The outbreak has also obliterated the economy that was once the strongest argument for Trump’s reelection.
“There are two schools of thought,” said Republican strategist Ed Pozzuoli. “One is that people are sitting at home watching. The second is that COVID-19 dominates everything.”
Democrats are responding by saying that Trump is politicizing federal investigations, just as when he courted impeachment by trying to coax Ukraine into probing Hunter Biden, and change the subject from his handling of the coronavirus.
“Politically, I think it matters,” Pozzuoli said. “It puts Joe Biden a little bit more on the defensive, and he already has communications problems.”
Trump isn’t giving up on his criticism that Biden is also past his prime, however. In an appearance in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on Thursday, Trump mocked his opponent’s reference to the swine flu as “N1H1.”
“Who says that?” Trump asked the crowd. “Sleepy Joe Biden!”
