Biden has told friends he thinks Trump is wobbly, both intellectually and emotionally, and will explode if Biden mercilessly gigs and goads him — “go haywire in public,” as one adviser put it.
Other sources tell us that Biden is looking for a fight.
Biden’s instincts tell him to let it fly when warning about the consequences of Trump winning the presidency again. Biden told The New Yorker that Trump would refuse to admit losing, again.
The “trigger Trump” approach would be a departure from a traditional Rose Garden re-election campaign.
Instead of focusing on jobs and the economy — areas in which polls suggest Americans aren’t giving Biden much credit — Biden would be making the contest as much about Trump as his own accomplishments.
One potential upside: It would help assuage concerns about Biden’s age by showing that at 81, he can still throw a Scranton punch.
Some Democrats want to see a return of the Joe Biden who sliced and diced his 2012 opponent, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), in the 2012 vice presidential debate.
Driving the news: It’s unclear whether Biden will flash his new fighting spirit at the State of the Union address on Thursday.
But Biden’s personal feistiness has been apparent in recent weeks. “Loser” has been a favorite Biden taunt of Trump lately.
“I’m the only one who has ever beat him,” Biden said in the rare, lengthy interview with The New Yorker, published Monday, “And I’ll beat him again.”
“Trump lost 60 court cases — 60,” Biden said, referring to the legal challenges on Trump’s behalf that alleged fraud in the 2020 election (It was 63, actually).
“The legal path just took him back to the truth — that I won the election, and he was a loser.”
[…]
Biden advisers have some evidence that Biden is already getting under Trump’s skin.
After Biden’s appearance with Seth Meyers, Trump quickly complained about the show on social media, calling the president a “basket case.”
Biden is using his campaign’s new TikTok account to take more jabs at his Republican rival. “Trump has no courage,” Biden said recently. “All Trump does is bow down to Putin.”
Why do I think that’s just fine? How about this from Kevin Drum?
Greg Sargent comments today on a poll saying voters aren’t really aware of Donald Trump’s most incendiary comments:
Large swaths of voters appear to have little awareness of some of Trump’s clearest statements of hostility to democracy and intent to impose authoritarian rule in a second term, from his vow to be “dictator for one day” to his vague threat to enact “termination” of provisions in the Constitution.
….The poll asked them about 10 of Trump’s most authoritarian statements, including: the two mentioned above, Trump’s claim that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” his vow to pardon rioters who attacked the Capitol, his promise to prosecute the Biden family without cause, his threat to inflict mass persecution on the “vermin” opposition, and a few more. Result? “Only 31 percent of respondents said they previously had heard a lot about these statements by Trump.”
Only 31%? Compare that to various questions asked in recent YouGov polls:
Hell, only 34% had heard about the Hur report. Only 24% knew we were striking back against the Houthis. And the fact that a star witness had lied about bribes paid to Hunter and Joe Biden? Only 22%.
Most people don’t know anything about anything. In fact, I’ll bet that even these numbers are inflated, with lots of respondents saying they’ve heard a lot about these things because they watched a segment on the evening news or got pointed to a Facebook post.
This is why I think Biden has a fair amount of upside in the presidential race. In September, when people start paying attention, what are they going to learn? Mostly bad stuff about Trump and good stuff about Biden’s little-known positive accomplishments. That’s where the greatest ignorance is right now, so it’s also where there’s the greatest potential for change.
According to IPSOS, some of the pollsters haven’t been asking an important question. When they do…
When questions concerning “political extremism and threats to democracy” and “Joe Biden and woke Democrats” and “Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans” are added to standard “main issue” questions about the economy, immigration, etc., the additional political questions rise to the top in importance, with Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans seen as a more important problems than Joe Biden and woke Democrats:
The issue landscape shifts significantly for Samples B and C, with explicitly political options rising in importance for Americans. In Sample B/Democracy, 24% choose political extremism as the most important problem facing the U.S., followed by immigration (20%), the economy (13%), war (6%), and crime (6%). In Sample C/Political, 23% say Donald Trump and MAGA republicans are the most important problem facing the U.S., with the economy (17%), Joe Biden and woke Democrats (13%), and immigration (10%) following in importance for Americans.
Also, more independents (25%) think that Trump and MAGA Republicans are the most important problem in the U.S. today than feel that way about Biden and woke Democrats (13%).
-Likewise, significant partisan gaps emerge in Sample C/Political too. About two in five Democrats (39%), one in four independents (25%), and 2% of Republicans say that Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans are the most important problems facing the U.S. today. Conversely, three in ten Republicans (29%), 13% of independents, and 1% of Democrats say Joe Biden and woke Democrats are the most important problems facing the country.