Like some cheating videos President Joe Biden’s online outburst in recent weeks has intensified pressure on his re-election campaign as it tries to change the script by repeatedly highlighting unsavory clips of former President Donald Trump on social media.
A prolific Biden campaign account was subpoenaed on X @BidenHQhas shared at least 20 such videos since June 1, with a notable uptick this week lasting more than two minutes montage Trump’s “confused, lost, wandering and waving at no one” on Thursday.
In an interview with NBC News at Biden campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, deputy campaign manager Rob Flaherty said his team is deliberately investing resources to be stronger in responding to videos that try to raise questions about Biden’s age, 81 and 81. opportunity to serve a second term.
Conservative accounts, especially those from the Republican National Committee “research” armThey widely shared unflattering clips of Biden struggling to find a seat at a D-Day event in France and wandering off after a parachuting demonstration with other world leaders in Italy.
GOP-aligned accounts of the French event claimed Biden was trying to get a seat in a non-existent seat. But the full footage of the ceremony shows the president looking over his shoulder at his chair and pausing before sitting down. (The chair was actually there.)
At the Italian event, one tight camera angle showed Biden walking by the Italian prime minister before retreating to the group. However, the second camera angle shows the president actually going to meet the paratroopers who had just finished the presentation.
The Biden campaign calls these “deceptively edited videos” a “big part” of the Trump team’s strategy.
“We have to be more aggressive about monitoring, intervening and taking action against it, because that’s going to be a central element of how it communicates,” Flaherty said. “We are pushing back against this era by shaking off Donald Trump and his own words — his more dangerous divisive rhetoric — because that is the hallmark of his campaign. These misleading videos were released because Donald Trump wants to distract from his unpopular agenda.”
@BidenHQ account last week He published a clip of TrumpThe recently turned 78 said he “slipped and tripped” after mispronouncing a word. other writings to himmixed.”
In addition to trying to cast doubt on Trump’s mental abilities, the Biden campaign went after the former president’s physical strength. Biden campaign account on June 13 He published a video of Trump going down the stairs with the caption: “Four years ago today, weak and miserable Trump had to be managed by a handler because he could barely walk off the ramp.”
At that time, Trump claimed that the ramp “is too long and steep, has no handrails and, most importantly, is very slippery.”
Caroline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary, said while the president’s campaign posted “clips out of context” of Trump, her team shared “real videos” of Biden.
“Biden’s team is on the defensive because they know the majority of Americans believe what they see with their own eyes — and that is a rapidly declining, inconsistent, incompetent and weak Joe Biden,” Leavitt said.
Biden’s White House has also been more open about the viral videos. Spokesman Andrew Bates called the barrage from right-wing accounts a “desperate smear,” which Biden aides have published or reposted as “cheap fakes” more than 50 times this week on X alone.
“They are cheap fake videos. They’re being done in bad faith,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at a press briefing Monday, adding, “I think that tells you everything we need to know … how desperate the Republicans are here.”
Biden campaign chairwoman Jen O’Malley Dillon made the push to post more Trump content during an episode of her podcast “Politics Free with John Heilemann” on Friday. (Heilemann is also a national affairs analyst for NBC News and MSNBC.)
“There’s no need to make up an ad or a story or some fake photo to show the American people exactly what Donald Trump is saying, and we really see that as part of our campaign,” he said.
The Biden campaign also acknowledges that the social media landscape has changed dramatically in recent years, creating new challenges.
“The speed at which information is being delivered to voters, the way voters are accessing information from some sort of personalized media environment is changing the way we engage with them, which means we have to be in more places,” Flaherty said. “We need to communicate with more people.”