The day after former Vice President Joe Biden kicked off his 2020 campaign, Donald Trump seemed eager to tell reporters how confident he is that he can beat the Delaware Democrat “easily” in next year’s election.
Of course, it was during the same Q&A that that the president tried to relitigate his scandalous response to violence in Charlottesville in 2017 — because Biden brought it up in his announcement video.
A day later, Trump complained about the former vice president on Twitter. Two days later, the Republican did it again. And then again. All of which set the stage for this morning.
President Donald Trump went on retweeting binge early Wednesday, promoting tweets from nearly 60 accounts that replied to a post regarding the International Association of Firefighter’s support for former Vice President Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential race.
Trump retweeted 59 replies to conservative media personality Dan Bongino’s tweet within a span of 20 minutes, promoting tweets from users who claimed firefighters did not support Biden.
Nothing says “presidential confidence” like promoting several dozen random anti-Biden tweets before the sun even rises in the nation’s capital.
The obvious takeaway from this is that Donald Trump seems a little nervous about the former vice president — a message Biden and his team will likely amplify in response to the Republicans’ odd tantrum. Of course, as Biden’s Democratic rivals will likely note, this may be some kind of reverse-psychology ploy the president cooked up. Perhaps he’s only pretending to be nervous about Biden because he sees him as a vulnerable 2020 candidate. Maybe, maybe not. It’s probably best not to spend too much time pondering the secret motivations of the president’s assorted strategies. That said, this morning’s reaction from NBC News’ Benjy Sarlin rang true for me: “I’m not usually a ‘That candidate sure is living rent-free in his opponent’s head!’ guy but geez.”
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past." Recommended
