WASHINGTON \u2014 America may be well on its way to forgetting Joe Biden; its president isn\u2019t. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Donald Trump spoke Biden\u2019s name more than a dozen times on Jan. 20, day one of his second presidency, and from that point forward he has basically never stopped. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As he nears the 100th day of his term, Trump has invoked his predecessor with a persistence that suggests the two are in the final throes of a bitter campaign. They aren\u2019t and won\u2019t ever be again: Biden pulled his name off the 2024 ballot and left elective office for good. But for Trump there is a certain political upside in making Biden a perpetual bogeyman. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mentioning Biden reminds voters that not so long ago, they were unhappy enough with high prices and illegal border crossings that they repudiated him and his hand-picked successor, Kamala Harris. Biden may also be a useful diversion from the whiplash of Trump\u2019s term<\/a>, shifting attention to the aged ex-president who struggled through speeches and looked unsteady on his feet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As children pushed their pink and yellow eggs at the White House\u2019s annual Easter Egg Roll on Monday, Trump mingled with the crowd and mocked Biden over an incident that many may have forgotten, if they were ever aware of it at all. Three years ago, Biden hosted the Easter Egg Roll and was redirected at one point by <\/strong>an <\/strong>aide dressed in a bunny costume. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDo you remember the bunny with Joe Biden?\u201d Trump said. \u201cDo you remember when the bunny took Joe Biden out? He\u2019s not taking Trump out.\u201d At that, a costume bunny standing alongside shook its head in agreement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Amplifying the point, the White House\u2019s official account on X posted video of the moment<\/a> with the caption \u201cThe White House is no longer a nursing home.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n In a statement for this article, White House spokesperson Liz Huston also invoked Biden and the work Trump has done moving on from his predecessor’s administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPresident Trump has spent the first three months of his presidency cleaning up the disasters created by Joe Biden and Making America Great Again,” Huston said. “Under President Trump\u2019s leadership, the border is secure, inflation is cooling, jobs are up, and common sense is restored.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump\u2019s running commentary on Biden brims with grievances large and small. To this day, he says he legitimately won the 2020 election. He has blamed Biden and other Democrats for the criminal investigations he faced in the aftermath. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe 2020 election was totally rigged,\u201d he told reporters last month aboard Air Force One. He described Biden as a kind of presidential impostor who usurped Trump\u2019s rightful place and then did \u201csuch a bad job.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n In his Oval Office meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in February, the topic turned to the war between Russia and Ukraine. After he lay blame on Biden, Trump said it pained him to say as much. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI hate to say that about somebody that sat here just before me, but he did a terrible, terrible job,\u201d Trump said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Unpleasant as it may be, Trump seldom tires of it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He has called Biden \u201cpathetic,\u201d \u201csad,\u201d \u201ca disaster,\u201d \u201cincompetent\u201d and the worst president in history. Biden had \u201cno clue.\u201d He “didn\u2019t know he was alive<\/a>.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump\u2019s beef extends from matters of high foreign policy to White House decor. In February, he said he had approached the Biden administration with an offer to build a ballroom<\/a> for the White House \u2014 something \u201cbeautiful\u201d at a cost of about $100 million \u2014 but never heard back. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis question takes me back to 2017 and everyone asking why he mentions Hillary so much,\u201d said Michael Dubke, a White House communications director in Trump\u2019s first term. \u201c\u2018She lost; you won. Let\u2019s move on, Mr. President.\u2019 The foil is key to his central premise that those that came before broke it and I will fix it. Even now that the campaign is over, the foil still has value.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n There may be another dynamic at work. Always mindful of his popularity, Trump may see Biden as competition for a place in the history books. In the zero-sum game of presidential rankings<\/a>, if Biden falls in history\u2019s estimation, Trump could rise. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn MAGA land, Biden was a false president. And Trump is trying to keep banging that drum so he can drive that narrative into the history books,\u201d said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The numbers tell the story \u2014 of a president who, as much as he may want to make America great again, would be happy to see Americans abhor Biden for all time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So far, Trump has spoken about Biden, his family or his administration at least 580 times either in public remarks or on his social media site, an NBC News analysis shows. That\u2019s an average of six times every day of his presidency. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After he won the 2020 election, by contrast, Biden mentioned Trump 29 times in the first 100 days of his presidency. That\u2019s an average of once every 3\u00bd days. Even then, he did so with a certain reluctance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m tired of talking about Donald Trump,\u201d Biden said at a town hall-style event. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Last month Trump used a televised event showcasing Elon Musk\u2019s Tesla vehicles<\/a> to take multiple digs at Biden. Holding notes showing prices of Tesla cars, Trump said: \u201cThey gave me notes. I said, \u2018I\u2019m not Biden, I don\u2019t need notes.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n He then climbed into a red Model S sitting on the White House\u2019s South Lawn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou think Biden could get into that car?\u201d he told the assembled reporters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump has given no sign that his preoccupation with Biden is waning. He\u2019s using the ample communication tools at a president\u2019s disposal to keep his predecessor front and center, with aides and subordinates stepping forward to sustain the drumbeat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump\u2019s White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, has mentioned Biden 78 times in the 16 briefings she has given thus far, <\/strong>including 37 times unprompted in her opening remarks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Cabinet members have gotten into the act, as well. When he was called upon during a televised Cabinet meeting<\/a> on April 10, Lee Zeldin, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, opened with \u201cMr. President, the Biden EPA was strangulating the economy.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Later in the meeting, when it was his turn to speak, Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade representative, told Trump: \u201cYou came into an emergency situation where President Biden left us with a $1.2 trillion trade deficit. It\u2019s the largest of any country in human history.\u201d (A number of economists<\/a> argue that running a trade deficit isn\u2019t necessarily harmful. The United States gets valuable goods in return.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump jumped in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou said the largest in history, right?\u201d Trump said. \u201cThere\u2019s never been anything like what he left us. He left us a mess. His whole administration was a mess.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Four other officials at the table in the Cabinet Room that day \u2014 Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Kelly Loeffler, head of the Small Business Administration \u2014 also used their public remarks to take swipes at the Biden administration. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At times, Trump-friendly conservative news outlets have teed up fresh opportunities for him to skewer Biden. At a joint news conference at the White House with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a reporter for The Gateway Pundit asked Modi whether he was more confident of a successful relationship with the United States under Trump \u201cversus with Biden\u2019s incompetence and weakness<\/a> over the last four years.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Before Modi could answer, Trump laughed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI agree with you,\u201d he said. \u201cYeah, gross incompetence.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Since he took office, Trump aides have exercised tighter control over which news outlets are allowed onto Air Force One and into smaller spaces that can accommodate only a certain number of journalists. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In February, the White House stripped The Associated Press of its traditional spot in the small group of journalists allowed to cover the president in such settings, citing its refusal to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the \u201cGulf of America,\u201d the name Trump has given it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n No AP reporters were on board during an Air Force One flight April 13 when Trump stopped by the press cabin to take questions. A reporter from Real America\u2019s Voice was on the plane, however, and at one point posed this question<\/a>: \u201cHow do you do it, Mr. President? I haven\u2019t stayed up to 2 a.m. in the morning since I was 25. And now we\u2019re 2:16 in the morning having a press conference. How do you do it?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBiden was sleeping for 10 hours already,\u201d Trump said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Asked about Trump\u2019s fixation with Biden, a White House aide to the former president said: \u201cIt\u2019s bizarre.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think it\u2019s his attempt to distract from what he\u2019s doing to the economy. I also don\u2019t think he is over the fact that Biden beat him in 2020,\u201d the person added, speaking on condition of anonymity to talk freely. <\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Denouncing Biden is easy enough; proving the point is tougher. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump has faulted Biden for giving Ukraine aid in the form of a grant,\u2002as opposed to the Europeans<\/a>, who he said will be getting their money back. Both Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron corrected him<\/a> on that point in separate Oval Office meetings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He has accused Biden of weaponizing government<\/a> and said he ended the practice. Trump\u2019s detractors say he has used his power to retaliate against perceived political foes, including Chris Krebs, who was a Homeland Security official in the first term. Trump signed an executive memo<\/a> this month yanking Krebs\u2019 security clearance. Among the sins spelled out in the memo was Krebs\u2019 denial that the 2020 election was \u201crigged and stolen.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n An argument Trump makes is that Russian President Vladimir Putin so disrespected Biden that he felt free to wage war with Ukraine. Now that Biden is gone and Trump is back in the n White House, \u201cPresident Putin wants to have peace,\u201d Trump told reporters in February<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Putin, he said, \u201cdidn\u2019t want to have peace with Biden. And you tell me why that is, OK?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Though Trump promised during the campaign to end the war on his first day as president, administration officials have lately sounded resigned to its continuation. Indeed, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this month that the United States may be ready to \u201cmove on<\/a>\u201d from its attempts to broker a peace agreement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As the 100-day milestone approaches, Trump is nearing the point where it\u2019s becoming harder to blame Biden for what goes wrong. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump\u2019s start-and-stop approach to worldwide tariffs has rattled the financial markets, jeopardizing the 401(k) plans that millions of people rely on for retirement. Consumer confidence has dropped<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n People may now be less interested in what Biden did than in how Trump will dig out of a hole rooted in his seesawing trade policies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt always gets more challenging to blame current conditions on your predecessor the farther you get from your predecessor\u2019s time in office,\u201d said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster. \u201cThat\u2019s especially true with the economy, which has reacted rather strongly to Trump\u2019s tariffs and trade war.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n