As President Joe Biden tries to defeat Donald Trump, he’s increasingly focused on another goal he thinks will help him achieve it: getting under his skin.
Both privately and publicly in recent weeks, Biden has taken personal, biting and often sarcastic jabs at his Republican opponent, targeting his financial woes, campaign pace and even his weight.
It’s a strategy largely driven by Biden himself, according to multiple aides and advisers familiar with the approach.
“This is him and we are under his leadership,” one Biden aide said. “There’s something about Joe Biden that gets under Donald Trump’s skin more than anyone, and I think Joe Biden knows it.”
a star-studded fundraiser Biden, who raised $26 million for his campaign in New York City on Thursday, was asked what is at stake in the 2024 election. After a response that was widely critical of Trump’s positions, he concluded: “Everything he’s done is so old … a little old and out of shape.”
Biden also touched on the former president’s physical endurance while telling a story about a brief conversation they had about golf at the White House shortly after Trump’s election.
“I said it once when he walked into the Oval before he was sworn in. I said, ‘I’m going to give you three punches, but you carry the bag,'” Biden said with a laugh.
According to two of his aides and a top adviser, the president made the jokes on his own, noting that Biden often used similar quips in internal staff meetings.
“He’s pulling these off the cuff,” said one of the aides.
Earlier this month, the president also directly addressed Trump’s legal and financial problems, saying that he was approached the other day by a ‘debt-ridden loser’.
“I had to say, ‘I’m sorry Donald, I can’t help you,'” Biden told a group of donors in Houston last week.
His campaign even labeled Trump as “breaking the Don.”
Biden’s team believes that such comments and jokes can resonate with voters for two reasons: because they are “rooted,” one aide said, who Biden is, and without others, they wouldn’t work as well. authenticity to it.
While their contrasting political positions mattered to the president, one adviser said Biden was also “absolutely driven” to present a “sharp” difference in character with Trump.
The most natural place to do that, aides say, is on the campaign trail, which has already been on public display in recent weeks.
Biden regularly refers to Trump as a “loser,” pointing out that he lost the 2020 election, both at private fundraisers and in on-camera appearances at campaign office openings.
Aides and advisers expect that to continue in the coming months as the campaign moves into full general election mode.
“He reads Donald Trump like a book and he’s fun to watch,” a Biden aide said.
Trump’s campaign spokesman Stephen Cheung criticized Biden for hosting a fundraiser with former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton alongside Trump, who asked for a response to the president’s taunts. attended the wake For Jonathan Diller, the New York police officer who was killed Thursday.
“President Trump honored the life and legacy of Officer Diller and paid tribute to his family, friends and the NYPD for their terrible loss,” Cheung said. “Meanwhile, the Three Stooges—Biden, Obama, and Clinton—had a brilliant fundraiser in town with their elitist, out-of-touch celebrity benefactors.”
In small meetings with senior staff, Biden will crack jokes about Trump and then delve into the larger digital content his reelection effort is using on various social media platforms.
The most notable manifestation of this is the trend toward the “Dark Brandon” meme, which features a photo of Biden with red lasers shooting out of his eyes.
Biden himself has fully embraced the image created in right-wing circles to mock the conspiracy theories that carry him.
At the end of Thursday’s Radio City Music Hall event with Obama and Clinton, the trio did their best Biden impressions, wearing his infamous aviator sunglasses.
Before leaving the stage, Biden quipped, “By the way, Dark Brandon is real.”