'Revealing exchange' shows what Trump campaign 'feared most about Biden': report
After President Joe Biden announced Sunday he would end his bid for reelection and back Vice President Kamala Harris as the 2024 Democratic nominee, The Atlantic's Tim Alberta reported that Donald Trump's campaign is now facing its worst fear.
"For the first time in a long time, Trump does not control the narrative of 2024," The Atlantic staff writer emphasized, noting that the quick pivot sent Republicans into complete shock.
"They were confronting the reality of reimagining a campaign — one that had been optimized, in every way, to defeat Biden — against a new and unknown challenger," Alberta wrote.
In a "revealing exchange" on Super Tuesday — which was on March 5 — the American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump author "asked the co-managers of Trump’s presidential campaign what they feared most about Biden."
Senior adviser Chris LaCivita replied, "Honestly, it’s less him. And more …"
"Institutional Democrats," another Trump senior adviser, Susie Wiles said, completing LaCivita's sentence.
Alberta noted, "For months, in talking with Wiles and LaCivita, I was struck by their concern about the potential of a dramatic switch — Democratic leaders pushing out Biden in favor of a younger nominee."
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Alberta wrote:
The Democratic Party, Wiles and LaCivita would tell me in conversations over the coming months, was a machine — well organized and well-financed, with a record of support from the low-propensity voters who turn out every four years in presidential contests. Ordinarily, they explained, Democrats would have structural superiority in a race like this one. But something was holding the party back: Biden.
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"I don’t think Joe Biden has a ton of advantages," Wiles said. "But I do think Democrats do."
The MAGA staffers recognized "that from the moment they partnered with Trump," Alberta reported, "everything they intended for this campaign — the messaging, the advertising, the microtargeting, the ground game, the mail pieces, the digital engagement, the social-media maneuvers—was designed to defeat Joe Biden."
The sudden shift "caps a frenetic four-month stretch in which Trump’s campaign went from cocky about Biden’s deficiencies to fearful of his ouster to stunned at the sudden letter from Biden doing the thing Republicans thought he’d never do," Alberta notes.
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"So, we are forced to spend time and money on fighting Crooked Joe Biden, he polls badly after having a terrible debate, and quits the race," Trump wrote on social media after Biden's announcement. "Now we have to start all over again."
Alberta's full report is available at this link.