President Joe Biden purposely avoided using former President Donald Trump‘s name for three years, but the Republican’s surge in the polls and dominance in the primaries has caused Biden to change his tune.
After years of referring to Trump as “the other guy” or “my predecessor,” Biden is making a point to say Trump’s name directly — a sign that his campaign is preparing for a general election framed as a choice between protecting and abandoning democracy, rather than a review of Biden’s first term.
Biden has taken a page from his opponent’s playbook, attacking the former president’s character and issuing him a nickname. During a speech in Columbia, South Carolina, on Saturday, Biden said “Trump” 22 times, called him a “loser” twice, and referred to him as “Donald ‘Herbert Hoover’ Trump.” The former president has said he doesn’t want an economic crash on his hands because he doesn’t want to be like the 31st president.
The shift in rhetoric comes as Biden continues to flip-flop between trailing and leading Trump in several battleground states. Several voting blocs committed to the president’s campaign in 2020 are trending away from him over his age, the economy, and his support of Israel, leaving supporters wary about Biden’s reelection chances.
Biden’s campaign believes ramping up attacks on the former president’s character and misgivings could be key to promoting Democrats’ core message for 2024, as several strategists and lawmakers have admitted that the Biden team has a messaging problem.
Former aides told Axios that the president decided in 2021 he did not want to say Trump’s name because of his disgust of the former president, and he hoped avoiding his name would defuse the tension following Trump’s controversial presidency and the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol.
“The president has a visceral dislike and distrust of what Trump represents,” said former White House communications director Kate Bedingfield, who worked for Biden from 2021 to 2023. “So not constantly invoking him and putting him front and center was a way of having him hopefully move out of the center stage of our politics.”
“Having Trump front and center doesn’t really yield bipartisan success, which the president achieved in 2021, 2022,” Bedingfield added.
The former communications director has said Biden is using this as a campaign tactic to take his reelection bid to a place “that’s good for him” rather than doing it just to anger Trump.
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Other Democratic leaders have also avoided using Trump’s name, such as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). She has warned the president about saying the names of Trump and his supporters, such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). However, Pelosi took to saying Trump’s name last week, telling MSNBC in an interview, “I’m not going to spend too much time on Donald Trump’s cognitive disorders.”
Karoline Leavitt, national press secretary for Trump’s campaign, said the public is reminded of “how much better their lives were under his leadership that led to low gas prices, record-low mortgage rates, a secure border, and peace around the world” whenever Biden says Trump’s name.