WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden intends to win votes by getting a few laughs at the expense of donald trumpunleashing mockery aimed at angering the former president and reminding the country of its mistakes.
Like a comedian honing his routine, the Democratic president has been testing and expanding his jokes in recent weeks. It started with criticism of his Republican opponent’s financial problems, and now Biden regularly mocks Trump’s combed hairhis spoiled upbringing and his attempt to earn some extra money selling a special edition in the Bible.
The jokes are the latest attempt to crack the code on how to applaud Trump, whose own insult comedy speech has redrawn the boundaries of what is acceptable in modern politics. Few have had much luck, whether they tried to take the high road or get dirty with Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president.
“This is an ongoing challenge,” said Eric Schultz, a senior adviser to former President Barack Obama. Trump “is not someone who follows the rules. So it’s up to Biden to figure out how to adapt and follow the new rules of engagement.”
So far, Biden has been trying to thread the delicate needle to increase his chances of a second term. He uses humor to paint Trump as a buffoon unworthy of the Oval Office, but the president stops short of making the election a laughing matter.
Sometimes he finds that a few jokes can energize an audience even more than a big political victory and divert precious attention away from an opponent who would otherwise command the spotlight, even when stuck in a difficult situation. New York courtroom for its first criminal trial.
The most recent example occurred at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Saturday night. After years in which Trump constantly accused Biden of being “sleepy” and mocking his age (Biden is 81, Trump is 77), Biden fired back at the insult after Trump appeared to nod off in court.
Biden nicknamed his rival “Sleepy Don,” adding, “I kind of like it. I can use it again.
“Of course the 2024 elections are in full swing and yes, age is an issue,” he said. “I’m a grown man running against a 6-year-old.”
But the jokes about the annual black-tie event, which also features a professional comedian (this year was Colin Jost from NBC’s “Saturday Night Live”), are nothing new. The real essence of Biden’s routine comes during campaign speeches, in which he devotes a few moments to criticizing Trump in between recitations of policy proposals and legislative achievements.
“Remember when he was trying to deal with COVID? He suggested: inject some bleach into your vein,” Biden said Wednesday to a union, describing Trump’s guidance from the White House during the pandemic. “He made a mistake. It all went to his hair.
In Tampa, Florida, the day before, he attacked Trump for Supreme Court Ruling That Overturned Abortion Protections — with three Trump-appointed justices voting in the majority of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization — and then turned to the former president’s hawking of a $60 “God Bless the USA” Bible.
“He described Dobbs’ decision as a ‘miracle,’” Biden said of Trump. “Maybe it comes from that Bible he’s trying to sell. Wow. I almost wanted to buy one just to see what the hell was in it.”
Biden rarely references Trump’s lawsuits, but jokes about financial problems which began shortly after the former president was ordered to pay US$454 million on a civil case in New York.
“The other day,” Biden said at a fundraiser in Dallas last month, “a defeated-looking guy came up to me and said, ‘Mr. President, I need your help. I’m being crushed by debt. I am completely devastated. I had to say, ‘Donald, I can’t help you.’”
Even when Biden attempts humor, he rarely strays from talking about policy. He likes to note that he signed a bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure bill — after his opponent failed to do so, despite repeatedly holding events at the White House to drum up support for an idea that never materialized.
“He promised ‘Infrastructure Week’ every week for four years and never built anything,” Biden said this month to a group of laughing union workers.
The dilemma is that Trump, who tells voters that the entire American political system is hopelessly corrupt, can get away with name-calling that would backfire on other candidates. During his rallies, Trump imitates Biden as a feeble old man who can’t find the stairs after giving a brief speech, and calls the president “crooked” and “a deranged tyrant.”
The Republican campaign said the insults will only intensify as Biden tries to give them a taste of their own medicine.
Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesman, said Biden is “dragging his feet like a short-circuiting Roomba,” referring to the robot vacuum, while failing to address the “out-of-control border” and “unbridled inflation”.
Rick Tyler, who worked on the 2016 presidential campaign of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said voters have a double standard because expectations are different for Trump, who first rose to fame as a real estate developer and reality star. TV show “The Apprentice”.
“Celebrities don’t really have standards, and Trump is in that line,” Tyler said. For a politician facing Trump, “it’s like trying to play a sport with the wrong equipment.”
Senator Marco RubioRepublican from Florida, found this out the hard way in the Republican primaries in 2016. After Rubio joked about Trump having “small hands” — suggesting that another part of him was also small — Trump responded by saying, “I guarantee you have no problem.”
“Nobody has ever beaten Trump by getting in the ring with him,” said Alex Conant, communications director for the Rubio campaign.
Karen Finney, who advised Democrat Hillary Clinton in her 2016 run for the White House, said Trump can encourage opponents to “communicate on his terms, not on his terms.”
“It’s the kind of thing where you have to have balance,” she said. “You could spend all day just responding.”
But if Trump’s humor is blunt, Biden sometimes tries to make the most of it by remaining subtle. During a stop in Pittsburgh earlier this month, Biden spoke elliptically about Trump’s trial, betting that his audience was already in on the joke.
Trump, he said, is “a little busy right now.”
