EXCLUSIVE: President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ re-election campaign has revealed its ongoing, “aggressive” strategy to gain the advantage in critical swing states ahead of the November general election, telling Fox News Digital it will “take relentless effort” to defeat former President Trump.
Speaking with Fox amid a cross-country tour that will culminate in the president visiting all six of the states in which he narrowly defeated Trump in 2020, Biden-Harris communications director Michael Tyler touted the hawkish approach being taken by the campaign following the president’s fiery State of the Union speech earlier this month.
“We knew kicking off the year we wanted to have an aggressive posture going into 2024. That’s why the president began the year with speeches in places like Valley Forge and in Charleston, where he laid out what this election was going to be about,” Tyler said.
President Biden, left, and former President Trump. (Getty Images)
“Looking ahead to March, we knew we had tentpole moments like Super Tuesday, and State of the Union, where, in the minds of the American electorate, the general election was really going to kick off,” he added.
The day after his State of the Union speech — which avoided any major gaffes Republicans often point to as evidence of cognitive decline — Biden hit the campaign trail with a stop in Philadelphia, followed by another in Atlanta the next day.
Stops in Wisconsin and Michigan followed on Thursday, with more planned in Nevada and Arizona this week, all an effort to demonstrate what Tyler described as “defining the choice” voters have this November. “Joe Biden, who wakes up every single day fighting for the American people, bringing people together to get results, and Donald Trump, who is running a campaign of revenge and retribution, and is focused on himself.”
“This is, of course, going to be a very, very competitive general election contest, as all presidential elections are. But we feel good about where we’re at, just given some of the key metrics. And if you look at which candidate is fully consolidating their base of support, Joe Biden is doing that throughout the primary contest, while Donald Trump continues to hit a ceiling in proving an inability to expand beyond the MAGA base,” Tyler said.
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Concern over Trump’s ability to coalesce the various factions of the Republican Party behind his candidacy has continued to grow following former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley’s departure from the race the morning after Super Tuesday.
President Biden speaks during a State of the Union address at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, March 7, 2024. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Despite suspending her campaign, Haley still received more than 13% of the vote in Georgia’s primary last week, although it is unclear how much of that was early or absentee votes cast before she dropped out.
Recent polls have also suggested large portions of voters who supported Haley in other states were motivated by their opposition to Trump, and that they might not shift their support to him as the Republican nominee.
That does not mean those voters would automatically show up to support Biden, but, as Fox News contributor and Republican strategist Karl Rove said amid Super Tuesday’s results being tallied, “Team Trump ought to be concerned about unifying the Republican Party.”
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“I just think the ability to expand beyond the MAGA base, look at which candidate is amassing the financial resources and building the infrastructure needed to reach the voters who are going to decide this election — Joe Biden is doing that. Donald Trump is not,” Tyler said, referencing the massive cash advantage the campaign, in conjunction with the Democratic National Committee, holds over their Republican rivals.
“We have $130 million in the bank to wage this general election fight, while Donald Trump is … either spending money up to this stage in the race fending off Nikki Haley or spending money on legal fees. None of the money that he’s spending so far is geared towards reaching the voters that are going to, again, decide the pathway to 270 electoral votes in the general election,” he added.
Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley speaks as she announces she is suspending her campaign, in Charleston, South Carolina, March 6, 2024. (REUTERS/Brian Snyder)
According to FEC filings, the $50 million spent by Trump’s fundraising entities on his legal defense last year goes up to north of $90 million if spending in 2022 and 2021 is included. Combining that with Trump’s fundraising costs — which reach nearly half of the $282 million he’s raised — his cash burn rate amounts to a whopping 81%, leaving him just $0.19 per dollar raised.
“He’s spending that money screaming into an echo chamber of MAGA extremism. And I think the most important thing is which candidate is running on an agenda that’s actually popular with the American people, and with a proven track record of delivering results for the American people,” Tyler said.
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“Joe Biden is clearly doing that, running on a historic record of accomplishment, and running on an agenda that is very popular, versus Donald Trump, who is running on an agenda that is even more extreme than the one that he governed on when he had power, and that he campaigned on in 2020. It’s as dangerous as it is extreme this go around in 2024,” he said.
When asked if he felt Biden — who has trailed Trump in recent swing state polls — could get a boost from the former president possibly being required to attend court rather than be on the campaign trail, Tyler did not concede that any aspect of the race would be made easier.
President Biden speaks at a campaign event at Pullman Yards on March 9, 2024 in Atlanta. (Megan Varner/Getty Images)
“I think it’s going to take a relentless effort on behalf of this campaign to reach the voters,” he said. “We are running on a popular historic record of accomplishment. It is about us doing the work to communicate with the voters who are going to decide this election everything this administration has done to make their lives better over the last four years.”
“The more that the American people hear about Joe Biden’s record of accomplishment, his positive vision for the future, and the more that they hear about the danger and the extremism that is posed by Donald Trump, the more they’re going to side with Joe Biden over the course of the next eight months,” he said.
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Tyler dismissed any notion that the campaign’s aggressive posture was part of an effort to push back on concerns about Biden’s age and cognitive ability, but rather about “aggressively campaigning, and aggressively contrasting what this election is actually going to be about.”
“The president himself has said this is not going to be a contrast in age. It’s going to be a contrast in the age of the candidates’ ideas,” he said.
“Donald Trump’s ideas are old as hell, and they’ve already been rejected by the American people. And so, Joe Biden is going to aggressively make sure that we reject Trump’s ideas for good, and that we continue to pursue a more positive vision for what this country can achieve if we all work together,” he added.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.
Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.