Feeling more confident after last week’s debate, former President Donald Trump has avoided his usual public appearances as questions swirl about President Joe Biden’s mental state and the state of his reelection campaign.
“We’re trying something new and staying quiet,” one source said, describing the Trump campaign’s strategy.
Multiple sources close to Trump told ABC News that Biden and his team are watching closely to see how Trump responds to tough questions about his political future.
A big moment for Biden will be his interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on Friday. An initial excerpt will air on “World News Tonight,” and then the full interview will air on the ABC network in a primetime special at 8 p.m. ET on Friday.
The White House reiterated this week that Biden is not considering resigning.
Trump and his campaign have publicly maintained that Biden will ultimately be the Democratic nominee, but at the same time argued that he does not have the skills to survive until November.
But sources say the campaign is preparing for all scenarios and is promoting Trump’s debate performance and the polls, which it feels are trending in their direction.
For one thing, the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee have spent the past week highlighting alleged gaffes by Vice President Kamala Harris and harshly criticizing her record, amid circulating rumors that she could be a potential replacement for Biden if he were to withdraw.
“Joe Biden is weak, unsuccessful, dishonest and unfit for the White House,” senior campaign advisers Chris LaCivita and Suzie Wiles said in a statement. “They have all lied about Joe Biden’s cognitive status and supported his disastrous policies for the past four years, especially his giggling co-pilot, Kamala Harris.”
Earlier this week, Trump was filmed outside the clubhouse of his Bedminster golf course slamming Biden’s reelection chances and further disparaging Harris.
“I removed him from the election, which means Kamala won,” Trump said in a video secretly recorded by someone and obtained by The Daily Beast and later posted to Trump’s social media platforms. “I think she’ll be better. She’s so awful. She’s so pathetic. She’s so awful.”
The Biden campaign responded to the video with a list of “bad” things that happened under the Trump administration.
“No, Donald. What’s wrong is disenfranchising women. What’s wrong is losing an election and encouraging a mob to storm the Capitol,” the Biden campaign said in a statement, listing more than 20 reasons why, including Biden’s poor golf skills.
Other than that video, a few radio interviews and a triumphant social media post after the Supreme Court ruled mostly in Trump’s favor on presidential immunity, Trump has remained silent, leaving the future of the Biden campaign to dominate the news cycle.
President Trump on Thursday spent the Fourth of July evening delivering a virtual address to veterans in Wisconsin and Florida. He delivered the speech from Bedminster, New Jersey, where he was staying last week, according to posts on the president’s own social media platforms.
Next week, Trump will campaign in Doral, Florida, and Butler, Pennsylvania, ahead of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee later this month. It will be his first public campaign appearance since his Virginia rally the day after the debate.
The light campaigning last week comes after Trump has been campaigning and fundraising nonstop in recent weeks since his hush money trial, in which he was released from a Manhattan courthouse after a jury convicted him of 34 counts of falsifying New York business records.
Since the trial ended in late May, the former president has been crisscrossing the country, courting wealthy donors on the West Coast and rallying with voters in the battleground states of Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Biden, by contrast, has made a flurry of public appearances since the debate, seeking to prove to Americans that he is fit for the presidency and to allay doubts within his party: He has visited campaign sites large and small, held multiple fundraisers and attended official White House events as president.
Sources say the courtroom is quieter and Trump is finally having time to immerse himself in politics, making it the calmer it has been in months.
Aides told ABC News that the hiatus allowed Trump to focus on planning the convention and selecting a running mate.
According to ABC News sources, the vice presidential pick has not yet been decided, but next week could be a turning point for the former president to announce his running mate ahead of the party convention starting July 15.
The former president has also been capitalizing on this week’s news cycle and a possible vice presidential announcement to raise money, insisting to supporters at a fundraiser on Friday morning that Biden “may be walking away.”
