Donald Trump’s reelection campaign is about to unleash a massive negative ad campaign against Joe Biden — the president’s most aggressive effort yet to damage his Democratic opponent.
With Trump’s poll numbers sagging amid his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, the offensive underscores how his advisers believe they must turn the race into a choice election between the president and Biden, rather than solely a referendum on Trump’s performance.
The cash-flush campaign is slated to more than $10 million on an advertising blitz across broadcast and cable channels, as well as online. One of the commercials says Biden “coddles China,” where the pandemic originated.
“Joe Biden won’t stand up to China,” the ad declares. “He never has. He never will.”
Trump has personally approved the onslaught, according to people familiar with the decision. The president is expected to huddle with his political advisers Thursday.
Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale hinted at the forthcoming offensive in a Thursday morning tweet calling the reelection effort a “death star” and declaring, “In a few days we start pressing FIRE for the first time.”
The decision to go after Biden marks a new phase in the campaign. With coronavirus dominating the headlines, the reelection campaign has so far been restrained in targeting the former vice president.
Many senior Republicans say the time has come for Trump to go after Biden. Democratic outside groups, including the Priorities USA super pac, have been airing ads in swing states blistering Trump over his response.
“If the Trump campaign wants this to be a contrast election, they need to get about it,” said Karl Rove, the architect of George W. Bush’s campaigns. “They must begin to lay out the lines of attack against Biden. Their effort needs to be focused, disciplined, phased, and with resources to help the messages break through.”
Rove noted that Barack Obama Obama and Bush’s reelection campaigns started to define their general election opponents in the spring of the presidential election year. Obama delivered a speech attacking Mitt Romney on April 2, 2012 and Bush aired an ad against John Kerry on March 15, 2004.
Senior Republicans have been polling possible lines of attack against Biden. They say his relationship with China, his son’s dealings with Ukraine, and his oversight of the 2009 financial crisis are some of the most potent avenues.
But others are potentially less effective. Going after Biden’s mental capacity — something the Trump team has done relentlessly in recent weeks — has done less to sway voters, Republicans said.
Still, Trump's team has disagreed over whether or not to go negative with the coronavirus still raging. White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s 2016 campaign manager, has urged the president to focus for now on uplifting ads highlighting his role in managing the crisis. Trump has also been hearing from friends urging him to lay off Biden for the time being.
Among the Trump allies urging restraint has been former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has called for the president to focus on addressing the pandemic and wait on an anti-Biden blitz until after the Republican convention in August. Fox News host Sean Hannity has privately told senior Republicans that the president should hold off for now.
Neither Hannity nor a Fox News spokesperson would comment.
Others, though, say Trump can't afford to wait.
“Every incumbent’s election is a referendum on them,” said former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. “But it’s our job to define Joe Biden and remind the American voters of who he is and has been in his public life for the last 50 years.”
The Biden campaign said it's Trump who has a China problem.
"Joe Biden sounded the alarm about the coronavirus outbreak early, calling on Trump to lead and mobilize against it — while publicly warning him not to trust the Chinese government's word about containment," said Biden spokesman Andrew Bates. "But Trump didn't listen."
