After a series of polls showing President Donald Trump was losing to former Vice President Joe Biden, the president's campaign is launching a series of attack ads against Biden while Americans are continuing to die in the coronavirus crisis.
According to Axios, the COVID-19 "pandemic forced a pause, and a lighter touch, on Trump's original attack plan against his presumed general election opponent, according to people familiar with internal conversations."
"A lot of people have told the president to be careful, or risk seeming tone-deaf to the needs of the country right now," said a Trump administration official.
Trump thought that he was about to run a campaign touting his strong economy, but with the worst economy since the Great Depression and Trump promising things would still be bad for the rest of the year but would be "great" by next year.
"He is going to try to campaign as 'Joe Lunchbox from Scranton, Pa.' But he will be exposed as 'NAFTA Joe,'" one official said.
"Joe Lunchbox" is not among the nicknames famously used for Biden, except by Republicans and Russian bots on Twitter and Facebook, according to a Google search.
"The campaign plans to launch state-specific attacks targeting Biden's record on three areas: Cuba, fracking and trade," said Axios.
None of the topics seem to be impacting Americans who lost jobs due to the coronavirus and are suffering from increased fear about more people spreading the virus as states begin to reopen. It could end up making Trump look like he's out of touch with the fears and anxieties most Americans are suffering from.
Biden, by contrast, is addressing the failures of the administration in dealing with the coronavirus crisis.
Reports last week from multiple sources verified that Trump lost it with his campaign manager for his falling poll numbers, threatening to sue the man. Trump denies it. As states reopen, Trump is taking an even greater risk. If the reopening results in a huge increase in coronavirus cases and deaths the economy will likely fall even more and Americans will blame him for the decision to rush the reopening before a vaccine was released.