Former President Donald Trump is not known for his understated commentary on the weaknesses of his political opponents.
But after a debate in which some Democrats felt presidential Joe BidenHis performance has been so inconsistent and troubling that he is said to be considering dropping out of the race for president just weeks before the Democratic Party Convention. Trump, however, is staying out of the full race.
At a rally in Virginia on Friday, Trump said his complaints about Biden had nothing to do with his age, that the president had prepared too well for the confrontation and that Biden was ultimately likely to be the toughest opponent he could face.
“He studied so hard he didn’t know what he was doing,” Trump, 78, said of his 81-year-old rival, adding: “It’s not his age, it’s his competence.”
Trump added that he doesn’t believe Democrats would dump Biden “because he’s doing better in the polls than all the Democrats they’re talking about,” pointing to California’s government. Gavin NewsomVice President Kamala Harris and “some of the others.”
“It’s hard to believe, but Crooked Joe Biden is polling better than those people,” he said.
It’s a departure from Trump’s rhetoric, and that of his allies, from just a few weeks ago, when Trump told WABC 770 AM that he doubts Biden “will even be a candidate, honestly.” I just can’t even imagine it.”
For months, Republicans have floated the idea that Biden, already the oldest president in the nation’s history, would ultimately not be on this fall’s ballots. They have spread a conspiracy theory that Democrats were planning to replace him with Newsom or former first lady Michelle Obama at the end of the campaign.
But after Biden’s appearance Thursday, Trump and his campaign advisers moved quickly to fend off suggestions that the president might not be their opponent this fall.
“Biden’s not going anywhere,” Chris LaCivita, a senior Trump campaign adviser, told NBC News after the debate. “The only way Joe Biden gets knocked off the ticket is if he voluntarily decides he’s not going to do it, and he’s not going to make that decision.”
Clearly, political considerations are at play: Trump’s team now sees Biden as the undisputed candidate they most want to run against, especially as Democratic fears about Biden’s strength spill over to the public.
“The Democrats are in absolute disarray,” Trump adviser Brian Hughes told NBC News after the debate in Atlanta. “They’re afraid they’ve made a terrible mistake. I hope nobody leaves them alone. If they think they can just walk away from Joe Biden, that would be a form of dishonesty that they should be called out on.”
Within 24 hours of Thursday’s debate, congressional Democrats and potential 2028 presidential candidates, including Governors Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, JB Pritzker of Illinois and Newsom, along with Harris, have all backed Biden, as has former President Barack Obama . But others were quick to suggest that Biden’s performance required him to resign or at least call for a serious conversation about alternatives.
Ultimately, Biden would have to make the decision to step aside at this point. And he gave every indication at a rally in North Carolina on Friday that he is following through.
“I know I’m not a young man,” Biden said. “I no longer walk as easily as I used to. I no longer speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to, but I know what I do know: I know how to tell the truth! I know right from wrong. And I know how to do this job.”
Biden compared his mistakes to Trump’s misleading or false statements during the debate.
“If you get knocked down, get back up,” Biden shouted to a cheering crowd.
Brendan McPhillips, a senior adviser to Biden’s Pennsylvania team, said that ultimately, Trump’s comments about “black jobs” and his refusal to commit to accepting the election results will prove to be a bigger problem than Biden’s poor performance, no matter how much Democratic consternation emerges in the immediate aftermath.
McPhillips was managing Democratic Sen. John Fetterman’s campaign in the Keystone State in 2022, when the candidate suffered a stroke and had a deeply concerning debate performance against Republican Mehmet Oz weeks before winning the battleground state.
“And it turns out voters didn’t care about that nonsense,” he said. “It actually emphasized the stakes. And when I look at what’s happening now, I see a lot of the same nonsense. I see a lot of people claiming to be relevant and wanting to increase their own influence by making wild statements on Twitter and online or in the press.”
Speaking to Fox News, Trump even said that not only would Biden be the Democratic nominee, but that no other candidate could have done better than him.
“They wouldn’t have done a better job,” he said Friday. “Nobody else would have done it better.”
Biden’s performance, however, has worried at least one Trump adviser, who described watching Biden and being gripped by concern that the performance could be bad enough to force Biden out of the race.
“It was the sum of all my fears,” the advisor said.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
