“Whether it's him or somebody else, I'm going to go out and campaign,” Trump said Monday in an interview with Richmond radio host John Reed, referring to polls that show he has equal or greater support against other Democratic candidates.
“What's interesting is we're way ahead of him in the polls and yet nobody else is doing better than him,” he added in an interview with radio host John Fredericks that aired on Monday.
The spotlight on Biden is unusual for Trump, who is accustomed to dominating the headlines, but has kept a lower profile and no public events scheduled since the debate. The announcement of his running mate is expected as early as next week, followed by the Republican National Convention the week after.
The message the Trump campaign sent to surrogates after last week's debate was that Biden was the Democratic nominee and Democrats had to rely on him, said a Republican close to the campaign, who, like others interviewed for this story, was not authorized to speak publicly. Biden struggled through a fierce 90-minute battle that sparked widespread alarm within the party.
“They clearly want Biden to stay in the race. They think he's weak and they're happy with the status quo. They're clearly not at all keen on the possibility of Biden dropping out of the race,” said David Axelrod, Barack Obama's longtime chief strategist.
According to people familiar with the matter, Trump's advisers were privately surprised by Biden's poor performance because they thought he was a stronger debate candidate.
Taylor Budowicz, who heads Trump's outside PAC, said Thursday's debate footage “would be a devastating campaign ad.” But Budowicz also said that Harris's nomination has “the ad team laughing with excitement.” On Wednesday, the PAC known as MAGA Inc. circulated an attack on Harris with the headline “Is Invasion Czar Kamala Harris the Best They Have?”
The Biden campaign and White House have maintained the president still intends to run and are planning new campaign events and at least one television interview. The campaign announced it had raised $127 million in June and had $240 million in cash at the end of the month, compared with $111.8 million raised by the Trump campaign and $285 million in the bank.
Incumbent Biden and his aides have sought to continue their onslaught on Trump, attacking him on a range of issues, including abortion and the storming of the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters on January 6, 2021. Biden on Monday responded to the Supreme Court's decision on presidential immunity, saying the ruling will embolden Trump “to do whatever he wants” in his second term.
The Trump campaign expects him to be the Democratic nominee, Trump spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt said. “We are confident that whoever the Democratic nominee is, they can win by lining up with Biden and the Democrats,” she added.
The Trump campaign has begun airing ads suggesting Harris is praising Biden for his struggles, showing her laughing like a villain and vandalizing Biden and Harris' campaign logos to erase the president's name. The campaign has also attacked other Democratic candidates who have championed Biden in the past, accusing them of covering up the president's decline.
Republicans have said they will attack any Democratic efforts to replace Biden as an affront to Democratic primary voters and the democratic process.
“Is there a greater threat to democracy than having millions of Democratic primary voters who have already cast their ballots and then, after the primary, support an attempt by a few hundred Democratic leaders at the convention to replace the candidate,” Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), a potential vice presidential candidate, said after Thursday's debate. “This is the greatest threat to democracy that has been contemplated in the United States government in years.”
Outside the campaign, lawyers from the right-wing Heritage Foundation are examining voting access laws in all 50 states and preparing to oppose any efforts to remove or replace Biden after he officially becomes the Democratic nominee.
“What our investigation basically makes clear is that this is incredibly complicated and there is ample opportunity for litigation,” said Mike Howell, director of the Heritage Oversight Project. “You don't dance with the girl you brought to the prom. American elections can't be fabricated on the spot, and the fact that such a big lie was told to the American people is not a convenient excuse to evade the law.”
“We want to follow the rule that when someone is trying to kill themselves, it's best not to get in the way,” said Ralph Reed, president of the Faith and Freedom Coalition. “After Thursday, I think we're going to cede the stage to Joe Biden and the Democrats. They're organizing a circular firing squad.”
Trump himself has been largely silent this week, with some advisers saying he wants the selection of a running mate to be delayed as long as possible to allow Democrats to worry about their own problems. Trump remains fixated on two candidates: Vance and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), according to two people who have spoken to him recently. He has also mentioned other names, including North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, as a potential option.
“I don't think he's really made up his mind,” said one person who has spoken to him multiple times.
“President Trump will soon announce a running mate who is far more qualified and capable than Kamala Harris,” Levitt said.
Kellyanne Conway, a longtime Trump ally, argued that Trump didn't need to say much about the debate. “The art of politics is telling people what they don't see, not what they do see,” Conway said. “People are never going to forget what they saw in that moment.”
While Democrats are panicking over Biden's poor performance in Thursday's debate and his ability to run his campaign and serve another four years in office, Trump is welcoming a more positive development: the Supreme Court's decision will postpone and possibly eliminate the risk of criminal prosecution. Trump's legal team won a delay, if it can, until September in sentencing for Trump, who was convicted of 34 felony counts in New York state. The judge said he would consider the impact of the Supreme Court's Monday ruling that a president cannot be prosecuted for official acts.
Some Trump campaign staffers have rejoiced at the Democrats' collapse, posting sometimes vulgar tirades online aimed at Biden and his staff, but aides have warned against getting cocky and putting their own momentum at risk.
“The whole Biden reelection campaign is in complete free fall right now,” Fredericks said in an interview Tuesday. “Just get out of the way. Let them collapse.”
