Biden is no longer running, but Republican attacks continue

Trump repeatedly attacked Biden during a rally in North Carolina on Wednesday, his first since Biden withdrew. On social media, he criticized Biden’s speech on Wednesday, in which he mentioned his decision not to seek re-election. And with Republicans everywhere trying to link Harris to Biden, the president’s name is bound to keep coming up.

Trump expressed frustration this week at suddenly having to shift his focus away from Biden. Days after the Republican National Convention.

“So we are forced to invest time and money in fighting the fraudulent Joe Biden, who is polling poorly and dropping out of the race after a terrible debate. Now we have to start all over again,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform, asking whether Republicans should be “compensated for their fraud.”

Certainly, Republicans have begun to gear up for Harris. Trump fired off a new barrage of attacks against Harris at the Charlotte rally, and a pro-Trump super PAC is spending millions of dollars on new ads targeting Harris.

But the specter of Biden is still plays a big role. He has promised to finish his term and remain president for the next six months, and he has announced that he will campaign alongside Harris before the November election.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Biden said Monday in a surprise phone call with the campaign team.

Biden’s speech Wednesday night – in which he said he was resigning to “defend democracy” – sparked a new wave of Republican attention on him, with Trump campaign aides circulating photos of a scowling Trump watching the speech from his plane after the rally in Charlotte.

“On Trump Force One… Hey Joe… You’re fired!” Trump’s top strategist Chris LaCivita said on X.

Trump railed against Biden’s speech the next morning in an interview with Fox News, calling it “terrible.” He also made several social media posts reacting to the speech, calling it “WARMACY” and mocking media outlets for their coverage, which he said made Biden seem like he was “the equivalent of the late, great Winston Churchill.”

Trump followed up one of the letters by posting a large graphic of a ghoul under the headline “Tales from the Crypt.”

Trump and his advisers privately wanted Biden to stay in the race because they felt their chances were good against an unpopular 81-year-old president whose party was in disarray. Biden was also a known quantity in their party; in the most recent Quinnipiac University poll, he was almost 100 percent known among GOP voters.

In a memo Wednesday, Harris’ campaign argued that her lower profile “opens up additional layers of voters who can be persuaded.”

“This campaign is more dynamic now – the vice president is well known, but less well known than Trump and President Biden, especially among Democratic-leaning voters,” said Jen O’Malley Dillon, manager of the Harris campaign.

The candidate change sparked a race among Republicans to define themselves among persuadable voters before they succeed – and Trump is trying to do his part.

“For three and a half years,” Trump said in Charlotte, “the lying Kamala Harris was the ultra-liberal driving force behind every single Biden disaster.”

Isaac Arnsdorf contributed to this report.