The attempted assassination of Donald Trump has turned Joe Biden’s campaign upside down, forcing him to tone down his attacks, but At the same time, it gives him time to deal with his own political problems.
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The US president’s call to “lower the temperature” after the shooting deprives him, at least for now, of his strategy of attacking his predecessor by saying he is a threat to American democracy.
And that comes just days after Biden tried to pivot his campaign to his Republican rival following weeks of turmoil in the Democratic Party over his age and health following his poor performance in a debate against Trump.
In an interview with NBC on Monday, Biden declared that he had made a “mistake” in calling for Donald Trump to be “targeted” days before the assassination attempt on his election rival. “It was a mistake to use the word,” Biden told White House interviewer Lester Holt when asked if he had gone too far with his narrative.
Donald Trump had to be protected by the Secret Service after the attack on Saturday.
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“I meant to put the spotlight on him, on what he’s doing,” the president said. In the wake of Saturday’s shooting, Republicans are accusing Biden of creating the political conditions that led a gunman to try to kill Trump, ignoring their own candidate’s history of calls for violence.
It was a mistake to use the word
The question is how long Biden can afford to be gentle with Trump. “How can we talk about a threat to democracy, which is real, when a president says things like the ones he says? Is nothing said because it might incite someone?”the president told NBC. “I’m not into that rhetoric. Now my opponent is, he (Trump) talks about how there will be a bloodbath when he loses,” he added.
Biden also criticized Trump for calling for amnesty for his supporters involved in the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. and for joking about the hammer attack on the husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The Democrat used the interview to defend his candidacy despite calls from members of his party for him to retire. “I’m old,” Biden said. “But only three years older than Trump. And my mental acuity is damn good.”
Republican candidate Donald Trump is surrounded by Secret Service agents as he is led off the stage.
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‘Change of calculations’
In his Oval Office address on Sunday focused on unity, Biden, 81, hinted that he would soon lash out at the Republican again. “I will continue to speak out forcefully for our democracy, defending our Constitution and the rule of law, calling for action at the ballot box and for no violence in our streets,” Biden said.
Biden said he will be “criticized” at the Republican National Convention, which began Monday, but will still travel “this week” to defend the Democratic platform.
Despite cancelling a trip to Texas, Biden is going ahead with a planned visit to the swing state of Nevada. In an op-ed in the Washington Post, columnist Karen Tumulty wrote that “there could hardly be a worse time for Biden to be forced to redesign his strategy against Trump.”
Trump’s remarks could, however, help Biden in his fight for his own political survival. “This obviously changes the calculations for those who are calling for Biden to withdraw” from the race, Peter Loge, a political scientist at George Washington University, told AFP.
‘Too crazy’ and ‘too old’
The Democratic crisis over Biden’s age after the debate dominated the campaign in recent weeks, but with Saturday’s shooting the revolt over his candidacy abruptly fell silent.
Congressman Dean Phillips, an unsuccessful primary candidate, told Axios that it would be “unpatriotic and unprincipled” to raise the issue now. Biden has also sought to strike a presidential tone on the shooting, reacting quickly on Saturday and addressing the nation on Sunday in the third Oval Office address of his presidency.
The message of unity in appearances like this is not only directed at Republicans, but is also a signal to Democrats that they should support him as a leader in a time of crisis.
The shooting could unite Democrats, but it could also doom Biden’s re-election bid at a time when he is already trailing in most polls.
Iconic images of a bloodied Trump raising his fist after the shooting galvanized Republican hopes of a landslide victory in November. Loge, however, believes the effect may be small because “many voters see Trump as too crazy and Biden as too old, and an assassination attempt doesn’t change that.”
He added that focusing on the immediate impact of the shooting on campaigns is a mistake. “If we make political violence part of a campaign’s strategy, we lose the meaning of political violence and end up normalizing it,” he said.
AFP AGENCY
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