NEW YORK (AP) — He’s calling in to his favorite morning cable news show, bashing the “elites” of his party and dismissing unfavorable polls. He’s even talking up his crowd sizes.
As an increasingly defiant President Joe Biden rejects calls to step aside after a disastrous debate performance, he’s been embracing some of the tactics used by a man he calls a mortal threat to democracy: his rival, former President Donald Trump.
Trump has weathered a seemingly never-ending list of controversies, from the Access Hollywood tape that threatened to derail his candidacy weeks before the 2016 election, to his two impeachments, four indictments and conviction on 34 felony charges for falsifying business records. Through it all, Trump has developed a well-worn playbook for confronting allegations. He aggressively denies any wrongdoing. He lashes out at his detractors. And he often disputes what people have seen with their own eyes.
To be clear, there are significant differences between the men’s approaches. Unlike Trump, Biden has repeatedly acknowledged his poor debate performance, saying he had a bad night. Instead of publicly blaming his advisers, he’s said, “Any mistake made is my fault.”
But longtime Trump watchers say there is nonetheless something familiar in some of the ways Biden has pushed back at criticism in recent days.
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It remains to be seen if Biden’s efforts to keep his party behind him will work. Many congressional Democrats, worried about his prospects and their own in November, have declined to give him a full vote of confidence, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in an interview Wednesday. Trump, meanwhile, has maintained a tight grip on his party, even after becoming the first former president to be convicted of a felony. He will accept the GOP nomination next week facing no serious opposition.
Former Trump White House communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin, who is now a Trump critic, has called for Biden to withdraw from the race after the debate. She argues that Biden, in trying to hold onto the nomination, is “employing Trump-like tactics” with combative responses, cable news call-ins, pressure on lawmakers and an ‘I alone can fix it’ attitude.
“It very much echoes how Trump operates,” she said. “I think Trump has changed the stakes and lowered the bar for how to behave in office and…