An upbeat Biden ranges far as trial keeps Trump tied up
WASHINGTON—Meetings, interviews, fundraising events, official travel: Joe Biden tried this week to be everywhere at once while his rival Donald Trump was held up in court.
It was a tactical campaign move by an 81-year-old president who faces mixed polls and nagging questions about his age.
Since last Monday, Trump has been tied up in criminal court in connection with alleged hidden payments to a former porn star.
And for the next several weeks, the 77-year-old former Republican president, who’s been indicted in several other cases, will see his campaign disrupted while he sits in the New York courtroom.
Trump and his allies have branded as “lawfare” and “election interference” all the cases leveled against him by mostly party mates of Biden in the Democratic Party.
For instance, the former president points out that the case being heard in New York was designed to keep him off the campaign while Biden goes around the country.
Jubilant
Biden’s team jubilantly noted that last Wednesday, the only day Trump was not required to be in court, the real estate magnate played golf.
“I haven’t had a chance to watch the court proceedings,” Biden chuckled on Thursday at a fundraiser at the home of actor Michael Douglas, “because I’ve been out campaigning.”
On Tuesday, Biden flew to Florida to defend abortion rights. A day later, he presented himself to construction workers as a child of the middle class. On Thursday, Biden announced heavy federal investments in semiconductors.
Trump “learned the best way to get rich is inherit it,” said Biden, adding: “I guess that’s how you look at the world from Mar-a-Lago,” the former president’s vast estate in Florida.
On Friday, Biden again played up the contrast in a radio interview with host Howard Stern, a regular venue for Trump before he won the presidency in 2016.
But Friday’s interview was neither abrasive nor off-color.
Biden reviewed his life, the painful moments—the death of his first wife and their baby daughter, then the death of his eldest son from cancer—as well as the happy ones, such as meeting his current wife Jill.
Not all rosy
However, the week was not all roses for the Democrat.
On Wednesday, a Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll gave Trump the lead in several crucial states. On Thursday, Biden was hit by worse-than-expected economic statistics.
And questions about the president’s age resurfaced, thanks to a change in his routine.
Until now, when Biden traveled by helicopter, he walked alone to Marine One on the White House lawn, and did the same on his return, with multiple cameras focused on him.
Recently however, the president has been surrounded by advisers as he walks these few dozen yards.
According to the Axios news outlet, some aides prefer moving in a group to draw attention away from Biden’s gait, which has stiffened considerably.
Biden who has fallen several times in public, now prefers the shortest walkway to board his plane. He was also recently seen wearing thick-soled sneakers rather than dress shoes. —AFP
