If anyone gets a thank-you note from President Biden for helping get him out of a jam in recent days, it should probably be former President Donald J. Trump.
Just when Mr. Biden was swamped by unwelcome questions about his age, his predecessor and challenger stepped in, rescuing him with an ill-timed diatribe vowing to “encourage” Russia to attack NATO allies that do not spend enough on their militaries.
The stunner from Mr. Trump over the weekend not only drew attention away from the president’s memory problems, as detailed in a special counsel report, but also provided a convenient way for Mr. Biden’s defenders to reframe the issue: Yes, they could now say, the incumbent may be an old man who sometimes forgets things, but his challenger is both aging and dangerously reckless.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Just when Mr. Biden was swamped by unwelcome questions about his age, his predecessor and challenger stepped in, rescuing him with an ill-timed diatribe vowing to “encourage” Russia to attack NATO allies that do not spend enough on their militaries.
The stunner from Mr. Trump over the weekend not only drew attention away from the president’s memory problems, as detailed in a special counsel report, but also provided a convenient way for Mr. Biden’s defenders to reframe the issue: Yes, they could now say, the incumbent may be an old man who sometimes forgets things, but his challenger is both aging and dangerously reckless.
Mr. Biden’s team set out to make the real issue not his own capacity but the conduct of the special counsel, Robert K. Hur, just as past presidents like Mr. Trump and Bill Clinton have sought to redirect attention from allegations against them to the prosecutors who investigated them.
White House surrogates and friends flooded the airwaves in the days afterward to assail Mr. Hur for citing the president’s inability to remember key dates, including the year of the death of his son Beau.
Nikki Haley, the former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina governor, who is still trying to wrest the Republican nomination away from the front-running Mr. Trump, seized on that penchant to bolster her case that the party should not trust him to lead it to victory this fall.
Robert Gibbs, a former White House press secretary to President Barack Obama, said the latest episode proved that Mr. Trump was incapable of heeding an old political adage: “If your opponent is having a bad day, simply get out of the way and let it happen.”
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