Top Democrats urge Biden not to talk about his record

Party leaders have reportedly advised the president’s reelection campaign to instead focus on attacking Donald Trump

Democratic Party leaders have reportedly advised US President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign to avoid trying to tout the incumbent’s accomplishments and instead focus on attacking Republican challenger Donald Trump.

Several top Democrats have issued “stark warnings” to Biden’s team, telling them that efforts to promote the president’s policy record are “not resonating with voters,” CNN reported on Tuesday. “He wants credit, but it’s not working,” one of the unidentified advisers told the media outlet. “He needs to stop.”

The push to revise Biden’s political messaging comes as the incumbent prepares for Thursday’s presidential election debate with Trump, which CNN will host. Speaking on condition of anonymity, four Democrats close to the White House said they had urged Biden to spend his time on the debate stage emphasizing Trump’s potential faults.

Biden has been preparing for the debate at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland since last Friday. His former White House chief of staff, Ron Klain, is reportedly coaching Biden.

Speaking at a political event in April, Klain reportedly said the president was spending too much time trying to promote his accomplishments on infrastructure projects, rather than connecting with voters on their more pressing concerns. “Klain gets it,” one of the Democrat advisers told CNN.

Polling suggests that voters trust Trump more than Biden when it comes to their top-priority issues. An ABC News/Ipsos poll released last month showed that Americans have more confidence in Trump when it comes to inflation and economic policies, by a margin of 14 percentage points.

In recent weeks, the Biden campaign has focused largely on attacking Trump, claiming that the ex-president is a “threat to democracy” and will take away abortion rights from American women. Biden and his allies also have tried to hammer Trump as a convicted felon, following a New York City jury verdict last month finding him guilty of falsifying business records.

However, the prosecution of Trump apparently failed to deter the challenger’s supporters. In fact, the Trump campaign received a record cash haul of nearly $53 million in donations in the first 24 hours after the verdict was announced. Trump has argued that Biden and Democrat prosecutors are using the court system to interfere in the 2024 election.