Putin’s Pals Panic That Trump’s Opponent Is No Longer Old, Sick Guy
The news that President Joe Biden would not run for re-election caused a stir not only in America, but also in Russia, where pro-Kremlin propagandists are kicking up a fuss about what it would mean for their beloved Donald Trump.
Appearing on Monday’s broadcast of a state TV show 60 Minutes, State Duma member Oleg Matveychev complained that Biden’s move is a disaster for Trump’s election chances. “He is left without any trump cards!” Matveychev said. “Previously, he could easily attack Biden’s health, now he has nothing left to attack. More than that, attacking Biden at this point would be seen as inappropriate and rude.”
“Now they’re switching to [Vice President Kamala Harris] and are trying to attack her, but nothing new will stick to her,” Matveychev added. “Bringing up the fact she is not quite white will only activate her electorate.”
Russian state TV’s coverage of Harris—which is a carbon copy of what is playing on Fox News—was largely limited Monday to attempts at mocking her laughter.
Matveychev said that Biden’s departure from the race rendered the previous agenda obsolete. Discussing the age of the U.S. president or an assassination attempt against Trump is now yesterday’s news, he argued.
They really should've switched him out earlier
Nah, doing this at the same time as the RNC really took the wind out of their sails. I'm not saying that's what happened, but the result is the same.
Yes, and... It emphasizes that JD Vance is a super-lightweight with a thin record. Like Trump.
All hat, no cattle.
Could've had more time to campaign and we wouldn't have had to witness the embarrassment with the age and people trying to dismiss it as nothing. I think that did some damage
I don’t want more time to campaign. I want shorter campaigns. The more or less completely unbounded length of the American presidential campaign season is frankly exhausting and soul-destroying. I hate it so much.
At the same time, I do get what you mean.
The writing was on the wall after the debate, but if I were a craven political strategist I'd recommend doing it to keep the Dems in the news while the clown-show of an RNC was going on.
As bad as it is for Democrats to have had their strategy built up around Biden this whole time, Republicans are also going to struggle changing up their message.
Republicans have been talking about how Biden is unfit for office and needs to resign. Guess what? He's out. So now what? Are Republicans willing to talk about how a 78 year old demented and borderline schizophrenic Trump sees enemies around every corner and caters to conspiracy theories?
Or does age suddenly not matter now that Trump is the oldest one? Obviously Republicans can pivot, but it will take them several weeks to come up with new avenues of attack vs whoever the Democrats choose (even if everyone knows its like 90%+ likely to be Kamala Harris)
Because of the 2 party system, it is much more effective to make your opponent look bad rather than make your candidate look good.
The GOP have wasted so much money on campaigning against Biden, that they lost a lot more than the Democrats did.
Absolutely. They were trying to hide it for months and Biden's frailty was obvious well before even Jon Stewart pointed it out.
At the highest levels, you need pros in there helping you, and they should be honest. You should also trust what they say, even when it's painful. He should have done it last year so that the Democrats could find the strongest candidate.
That being said, I think Kamala's (assuming she's the one) strongest opponent will be herself. They'll be looking for any little things and we have 4 months to go. If she's able to maintain a strong message and nothing trips her up, she's got this.
I think she has a shot to win this, better than Biden, but it's going to be tough still. I like how Republicans are targeting her now and one of three topics they're focusing on is that she's "weird". It included laughing at strange monents and her loving Venn diagrams lmao