Biden has a new campaign strategy and it’s making Trump mad

Joe Biden is set to face off against Donald Trump in a rematch for the presidential ages but the approach being taken by Biden is a little different than what his campaign did in 2016. Biden is looking to get under Trump's skin this time around. 

NBC News reported that Biden’s often “sarcastic” and “biting” remarks as of late are part of a new strategy to destabilize the former president by getting under his skin. At least that’s what multiple unnamed aides and advisors told the news agency. 

The new strategy is one that Biden himself is diving according to one source, who stated: “This is him, and we’re following.” The source added that Biden seems to understand that there is something about him that irritates the former president. 

“There’s just something about Joe Biden that gets under Donald Trump’s skin more than anybody, and I think Joe Biden knows that,” the source said. So how has Biden used his unique ability to upset Trump? He’s making more public jabs at Trump more often. 

For example, Biden attended a fundraiser in New York City on March 28th that saw him and two other former presidents—Barack Obama and Bill Clinton—speak to a sold-out crowd in order to raise money for Biden’s 2024 presidential campaign. 

While the fundraiser event made media headlines for several reasons, one of the more interesting should have been because of Biden’s subtitles jabs at the former president regarding his age and physical fitness while speaking to Stephen Colbert. 

“This guy denies there’s global warming. This guy wants to get rid of not only Roe v. Wade, but he — which he brags about having done, he wants to get rid of the ability of anyone anywhere in America to ever choose,” Biden explained. 

“I mean, all the things he’s doing are so old — speaking of old.  And, you know, he’s— a little old and out of shape. But anyway,” Biden continued to the laughs and cheers of the crowd. It is the type of comment that is designed to upset Trump. 

Biden also went after Trump’s stamina in front of the crowd while sharing a story about a short conversation he had with the former president about golf in the White House not too long after Trump won the 2016 election.  

Biden said that he told Trump he would be happy to play golf with him while in the Oval Office but told him: “I’ll give you three strokes if you carry your own bag.” The comment earned Biden laughter and applause. But these remarks weren't the first time he attacked Trump.

On March 20th, Biden appeared to be testing the waters with his new strategy when he went after Trump for his financial troubles when he jokingly suggested at a fundraiser in Dallas that Trump was crushed by debt, according to The Independent. 

“Just the other day this defeated looking man came up to me and said: ‘Mr. President, I need your help. I’m in crushing debt. I’m completely wiped out,” Biden explained before telling the crowd that he said: “Donald, I’m sorry. I can’t help you.”

Biden’s remarks allegedly caused the nearly one-hundred-person fundraiser to erupt in laughter and it's easy to see how his comments, once made public, could work Trump up in a way that would be detrimental to his 2024 presidential campaign. 

Why Biden’s jokes about Trump work isn’t rocket science, and his aides think it has to do with the fact that Biden’s remarks are often rooted in his personality one Biden aide explained to NBC News, which they added often made those remarks feel more authentic to voters. 

However, Biden’s campaign has gotten quite nasty with their criticisms of Trump. For example, a March 25th statement from Biden’s campaign calling the former president “weak and desperate both as a man and a candidate for President.” 

Why Biden has shifted his campaign strategy towards personal attacks against Trump isn’t a mystery according to Marjorie Hershey, emeritus professor of political science at Indiana University Bloomington, Biden’s previous efforts weren’t working. 

“What he was doing before obviously wasn’t working. Typically, we all learn from bad experience and Biden has been behind in the polls to a candidate who is quite frankly hated by almost half of the American electorate,” Hershey told The Guardian.

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“I think that Biden was under considerable pressure from his advisers, from activists, to do something different,” Hershey added. That something different is the type of strategy that could reinvigorate Americans to vote against Trump in November.