It's months away from Christmas, yet Donald Trump just gave Joe Biden a major gift, according to a MSNBC analyst.
Trump is tied or beating Biden in many swing state polls, but he recently did something that opens him up to attacks, according to James Downie, a MSNBC opinion editor and a former editor and columnist for The Washington Post.
"Earlier this month, The Washington Post reported that Trump asked oil executives for $1 billion; in exchange he would prioritize reversing Biden-era regulations on the industry," Downie wrote Saturday. "That news broke less than a week after the Federal Trade Commission published evidence that Scott Sheffield, founder of the shale giant Pioneer Oil, colluded with OPEC leaders to inflate oil prices. Pioneer, of course, denied the claims, as well as other price-fixing allegations in nearly a dozen recent class-action lawsuits."
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By giving this speech, Trump has made things easier for the current president, according to Downie.
He said Biden should start by endorsing an effort by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee to investigate "the effective sale of American energy" policy in exchange for campaign contributions.
"From there, Biden can give further speeches and release more clips on social media highlighting and expanding his administration’s work against monopolies, oligopolies and price gouging," according to Downie. "(These addresses could also dovetail nicely with warnings about Trump’s inflationary plan for a 10% across-the-board tariff.) The message is simple: Biden is fighting inflation, while Trump protects those who profit from it."
Downie says Biden was talking about these issues before recently stepping back, saying, "That's a mistake."
"Biden should hammer away at exploitative corporations for their role in squeezing Americans’ pocketbooks — and dare Trump to do the same, secure in the knowledge that he won’t," he wrote. "Trump just gave Biden the perfect excuse to double down on this contrast."
