Politico’s Bureau Chief and senior political columnist Jonathan Martin laid out Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” three of the biggest issues with President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign.
USA Today’s Washington bureau chief Susan Page said Biden needs to come out and speak firmly on his son, Hunter’s, potential trial.
“I know the charges against Hunter are very different than the charges against Trump and we shouldn’t make them equivalent but it gives Republicans this huge, great talking point to kinda muddy the waters about the legal troubles that former President Trump is in, and the current position that President Biden is taking on this, his public position, is not sustainable. His son will probably be on trial. There’s every possibility he’ll be on trial during this campaign. We all understand that Joe Biden loves his son very much but he needs to say something like what Gov. Waltz said, who is, by the way, very effective, I thought, in saying ‘if Hunter violated the law, he needs to be held accountable.’ That’s what an American president should be saying.”
“The Biden staff can’t even get to the president about the issue because they don’t want to address a sensitive topic with the president. They’ve got a challenge,” Martin jumped in. “Chuck, I think Biden has basically got three issues where he’s not figured out what to say. One is, obviously, the questions about Hunter Biden, his son, the other is what to say about the investigations into Donald Trump and the third is about his age. Those are three massive issues that are sort of clouding his reelection campaign.” (RELATED: Alan Dershowitz Calls For ‘Independent Special Counsel’ In Biden Probe)
“The one thing I want to point out here, this stuff has taken a huge toll on him. Biden, right before the 2020 election, he was right-side-up, which, in our polarized politics, is quite astonishing. Trump and Rudy Giuliani began this campaign to try to tarnish Biden and turn him into the Clinton name with the obsession over the Ukraine businesses with Hunter, and it’s worked. His numbers now look more like Hillary Clinton ’16 than Biden ’20. Kimberly, maybe abortion is the difference there, that that will bail him out, but that doesn’t look good for him,” host Chuck Todd said.
Biden has been facing falling poll numbers, with a recent CNN poll finding 51% of Americans say the economy is getting worse while giving Biden a 41% approval rating. A separate poll commissioned by the Associated Press conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago found Biden’s approval rating on the economy is 36%.
Meanwhile, Biden faces potential legal troubles alongside his son, with Hunter’s lawyers allegedly having threatened to put Biden on the witness stand if the Department of Justice brought charges for an illegal firearm purchase, Politico reported.