On Thursday, President Trump diverted attention from his planned comments on the White House’s deregulation efforts to hunt down presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden over his recent policy proposals that the president argues would “totally destroy the beautiful suburbs.”
Commenting apparently on the repeal of federal regulations on infrastructure projects, Trump deviated from the topic to smear proposals put forward by a task force established by Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
“The American dream would quickly die out and be replaced by a socialist nightmare,” Trump said of the so-called “unity platform” by Biden and Sanders. “The end result will be to completely destroy the beautiful suburbs.”
Biden and Sanders last week released the comprehensive set of recommendations that, while establishing a progressive roadmap for the former vice president, does not meet the ambitious plans pushed by Sanders and other candidates during the Democratic primaries.
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The health care task force highlights ways to expand coverage by strengthening the Affordable Health Care Act, which was Biden’s position during the primaries, rather than lobbying for a one-size-fits-all “Medicare for all” health care system. payer, a characteristic political target for Sanders and Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren who was notably absent from the document.
But the climate change task force, co-chaired by progressive representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and former Secretary of State John Kerry, calls for a faster timeline for net zero carbon emissions than Biden had previously advocated, in instead of the Green New Deal, defended by Ocasio-Cortez, to review environmental policy, which was also not included in the recommendations.
On criminal justice reform, which has been in the spotlight for the past two months in the aftermath of the national racial unrest following the death of George Floyd, the proposals included a series of police reforms such as the ban on strangulation, the elimination of racial profiling and abuse victims pursue civil litigation.
Trump has criticized many of the suggestions made by Biden and Sanders on his platform, but in recent weeks he has decided to criticize his Democratic rival for an Obama-era housing rule aimed at addressing racial segregation. The president claimed that the rule would eliminate single-family homes in the suburbs of the United States and “abolish the suburbs.”
“The suburbs will no longer be as we know them,” Trump said. “They’re going to see him go to hell. Not while I’m here.
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The president’s focus on the suburban United States comes when he sees that his support in those areas is dwindling.
In 2016, Trump won suburban areas overall by four percentage points. But recent polls indicate that many of the suburbs that voted for him in 2016, particularly white women, have soured on his message. If the vote is correct, this would be a postponement of the 2018 midterm elections when suburban voters helped Democrats regain control of the House.
Trump’s attacks on Biden also come as his campaign seeks to restart after a drop in his poll numbers: The president has now lowered 8.6 points for Biden, according to a poll average by RealClearPolitics, and a major shake-up of staff on Wednesday.
The Trump campaign announced Wednesday night that it was replacing campaign manager Brad Parscale with veteran Republican agent Bill Stepien. The move announced Wednesday night came days after an article in The Washington Post portrayed Parscale as self-promoting and distant, noting that it featured prominently in an early announcement of the Trump campaign, and that employees complained that he often received calls by his pool at home.
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“I am pleased to announce that Bill Stepien has been promoted to the position of Trump’s campaign manager,” Trump wrote on Facebook. “Brad Parscale, who has been with me for a long time and spearheaded our tremendous digital and data strategies, will remain in that role, while serving as the campaign’s senior advisor.”
Trump added: “They were both very involved in our historic 2016 victory, and I look forward to a great and very important second victory together.”
Two senior campaign officials clarified to Fox News that “there are not two campaign managers” and that Stepien will have full executive control.
Paul Steinhauser and Gregg Re of Fox News contributed to this report.
