In a recent strategic move, President Joe Biden has instructed his senior campaign team to intensify their focus on the contentious remarks made by former President Donald Trump, according to two sources privy to the president’s directive.
Biden’s instruction, delivered to his top-tier staff, was to significantly amplify the campaign’s efforts to spotlight the controversial statements that Trump frequently makes in public, the sources revealed. This previously undisclosed directive from the president suggests that Biden believes it is crucial to portray his likely Republican adversary as unstable and unfit for office.
For several weeks, the Biden campaign has been prepared for Trump’s potential nomination as the GOP candidate. The president’s reelection team has consistently emphasized the stark differences between Biden and Trump in terms of their temperaments and world views.
According to Biden campaign advisers, alerting voters about the potential consequences of another four-year term under Trump is a key part of their general election strategy. This approach is largely driven by the concern among Biden’s aides that many voters seem to have forgotten some of the most shocking and unacceptable moments of the Trump presidency.
“The president recognizes that the stakes this November could not be higher for the American people,” said Ammar Moussa, the Biden campaign’s director of rapid response. “Donald Trump is the antithesis of everything President Biden stands for and has achieved since taking office. Over the next nine months, our top priority will be to present this stark choice to voters.”
In recent weeks, the Biden campaign has had numerous opportunities to highlight Trump’s most inflammatory statements. For instance, Trump recently suggested that he would encourage Russia to invade countries that fail to meet their NATO obligations, a statement that alarmed both US and foreign officials. The campaign swiftly released a statement from Biden condemning Trump’s remarks.
“Donald Trump’s admission that he intends to give Putin a greenlight for more war and violence, to continue his brutal assault against a free Ukraine, and to expand his aggression to the people of Poland and the Baltic States are appalling and dangerous,” Biden said. “Freedom and democracy itself are on the ballot in November.”
When Trump appeared to mock his GOP rival Nikki Haley’s husband, a National Guardsman, for his deployment abroad, Biden quickly condemned those comments. “The answer is that Major Haley is abroad, serving his country right now. We know he thinks our troops are ‘suckers,’ but this guy wouldn’t know service to his country if it slapped him in the face,” Biden’s post said.