FLORIDA AND FINAL DEBATE BRING NEW ENERGY TO TRUMP
WITH 10 DAYS TOGO, US PRESIDENT’S CAMP SEIZES ON RIVAL BIDEN’S OIL INDUSTRY REMARKS
An upbeat US President Donald Trump moved swiftly this weekend to capitalise on what his campaign saw as a well- executed debate performance, cutting an advert that includes Biden stumbling over energy policy, touting a record day of digital fund- raising and considering adding events to his schedule in the campaign’s final days.
“I thought I did great,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
Trump launched an intense last- ditch re- election push in Florida, insisting that Covid- 19 is disappearing, while frontrunner Joe Biden hammered his message that the president had abdicated responsibility for a pandemic that is actually surging.
In a speech in Wilmington, Delaware, Biden hardly mentioned the debate and instead talked about Trump’s handling of the contagion, saying, “The president quit on you.” With their last direct matchup in the rear- viewmirror and the scheduled events of the campaign now over, both teams plunged into a final, unscripted stretch, with fewer opportunities to make a fresh argument to the American people— or to stumble.
Massive rallies over the next fewdays
Trump hopes that holding several massive rallies over the next fewdays can help him drive home the themes from the debate, in which he used unverified news reports to cast Biden as corrupt, said the former vice president has little to show for his five decades in Washington and sought to paint Biden as a big- government liberal.
But in a contest that has remained remarkably stable, the president faces challenges to any effort to reset the race with nine days to go. Millions of voters have already cast ballots, and few remain undecided. The Trump campaign has less money to spend than Biden’s, and coronavirus cases are spiking in many places, underlining the Democratic message.
Still, Trump’s camp worked on Friday to amplify Biden’s artless response during an exchange on energy policy, when the former vice president said on the debate stage that he would “transition” away fromthe oil industry. Jason Miller, a strategist on the Trump campaign, called that a “massive stumble” that “probably will put the nail in the coffin for Joe Biden in Pennsylvania.” Trump advisers suggested that the moment could also help them in other industrial Midwestern states, including Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin.
Biden supporters dismissed the notion that the comment was some kind of game- changer. The Democrat clearly did not mean he would shutdown the oil industry in the short term, they said, and in any case the energy industry is already shifting toward renewables on its own.
Still, Biden’s team appeared to sense at least a potential danger. The candidate moved quickly to clarify his remarks, telling reporters after the debate that he was referring to ending federal oil subsidies, not the industry itself. On Friday, campaigning in Atlanta, Biden’s running mate, Senator Kamala Harris of California, fended off questions about his remarks. “The president likes to put everything out of context,” Harris said. “But let’s be clear: What Joe was talking about was banning subsidies, but hewill not ban fracking.”
On Friday, Trump said he thought his aggressive posture in the first debate was “more effective in terms of business and life” but that his more sedate performance Thursday was “obviously a more popular way of doing it.”
“You know, I wanted to play by the rules,” Trump said of the second debate. “They felt very strongly about it. It’s two different styles. I’m able to do different styles, you know, if you had to. But this seemed to be much more popular.”—