Overview:
• The Biden-Harris campaign has been trolling Trump by highlighting his incoherent and controversial statements.
• They emphasize his bizarre remarks about water, hair care, and swing states, as well as his opposition to wind energy and his habit of becoming sidetracked during speeches.
• The campaign also focuses on Trump's extreme immigration policies, his history of contentious statements on election integrity, and his penchant for making outrageous personal boasts and grievances.
As the first presidential debate of the 2024 election season approaches in Atlanta this week, the Biden-Harris campaign has ramped up its strategy of trolling the presumptive Republican nominee, Donald Trump. The campaign’s social media team has been using Trump’s own words to highlight his often bizarre and controversial statements, casting doubt on his cognitive abilities and countering criticism about President Biden’s age.
The Biden-Harris team has taken particular delight in pointing out the irony of the attacks on 81-year-old President Biden’s cognitive health, given Trump’s own incoherent remarks. At 78, Trump made several statements that left many people scratching their heads. A recent tweet from the official Biden-Harris rapid response page quoted Trump saying, “Washing machines to wash your clothes. They want no water.” This comment was part of a larger, disjointed diatribe about water regulations, prompting even Trump ally Fox News to cut away during his speech.
In another instance, Trump rambled about water pressure and hair care: “No water in your faucets. You ever try buying a new home and you turn on. You want to wash your hair or you wanna wash your hands. You turn on the water and it goes drip, drip…you can’t get it off your hand. So you keep it running for about 10 times longer. You trying, the worst is your hair. I have this beautiful luxuriant hair and I put stuff on. I put it in lather. I like lots of lather because I like it to come out extremely dry because it seems to be slightly thicker that way. And I lather up and then you turn on this crazy shower and the thing drip, drip and you say I’m gonna be here for 45 minutes. What? There’s so much water. You don’t know what to do with it. You know, it’s called rain…washing machines to wash your dishes. There is a problem. They don’t want you to have any water. They want no water.”
Trump’s controversial remarks extend beyond domestic issues to include disparaging comments about crucial swing states. As a 34-times convicted felon whom a jury twice found responsible for sexually assaulting a woman, Trump has called Milwaukee “a horrible city,” described Detroit as “like living in hell,” and labeled Philadelphia “one of the most egregious places anywhere in the world.” The Biden-Harris campaign retweeted these statements, emphasizing Trump’s hostile rhetoric about important voter regions.
The trolling escalated further when Trump expressed opposition to wind energy, bizarrely suggesting that his TV would turn off when the wind isn’t blowing. The Biden-Harris campaign also pointed out Trump’s habit of becoming sidetracked during speeches to single out women in the audience, asking, “Are you happily married?”
Additionally, the Biden-Harris campaign reminded their 372,000 Twitter followers of Trump’s extreme immigration policies, including his plan to round up millions of Latinos into mass detention camps and his nostalgic reference to the 1950s military operation “Operation Wetback.”
Trump’s history of contentious statements on election integrity was also highlighted. Despite his 2016 victory, Trump has claimed that every election he has participated in was rigged. Recently, he made the contradictory statement, “I don’t need any votes. We have all the votes we need. We don’t need the votes. We have the votes. I don’t care,” while simultaneously threatening mass destruction if he loses to Biden in November.
In another bizarre moment, Trump declared, “I will shut down the federal Department of Education,” and questioned his own language abilities with the comment, “And my stupid people when I wanted to refute it, they said, sir, don’t dignify it with a refuttal. Refutal or refuttal. What the hell word would that be? Refuttal. Watch, they’ll say he didn’t know refuttal or refutal but they don’t know either.”
Other controversial statements from Trump include his suggestion that wounded soldiers should not participate in military parades because “nobody wants to see that,” his confusion over the difference between mental institutions and insane asylums, and his strange story about choosing electrocution over a shark attack if a boat were sinking: “If there was a shark or you get electrocuted, I’ll take electrocution every single time.”
Trump’s penchant for making outrageous comments extends to personal boasts and grievances. He has claimed, “I have wounds all over my body. If I took this shirt off, you’d see a beautiful, beautiful person, but you’d see wounds all over me. I’ve taken a lot of wounds. More than any president ever.” He has also warned, “If the Democrats get their way, they will pass a federal law guaranteeing abortion rights,” and recounted his experiences with mental health terminology: “Mental institutions and insane asylums. Because, actually there, there’s more than a slight difference, right? Whenever I say Silence of the Lambs, the fake news back there, they say, oh, he’s talking about, he’s talking about Silence of the Lambs. And I say the late great Hannibal Lecter. Oh, he likes Hannibal Lecter. No, they’re crazy. I walk into a wall purposely. I look at that wall. Oh, that’s, that’s perfect. Sometimes, they don’t have a wall. You’re free-standing. It doesn’t. But I imitate him, and I, I, you know, walk into a wall, and the next day they write, Donald Trump could not find his way off the stage. So I don’t even do it anymore.”
Trump’s bizarre anecdotes also include a surreal tale involving a boat, a powerful battery, and sharks: “So I said, let me ask you a question, and he said, nobody ever asked this question, and it must be because of MIT, my relationship to MIT. Very smart. He goes, I say, what would happen if the boat sank from its weight? And you’re in the boat and you have this tremendously powerful battery and the battery is now underwater and there’s a shark that’s approximately 10 yards over there, by the way, a lot of shark attacks lately, do you notice that a lot of shark? I watched some guys justifying it today. Well, they weren’t really that angry. They bit off the young lady’s leg because of the fact that they were, they were not hungry, but they misunderstood what who she was? These people are. He said there’s no problem with sharks. They just didn’t really understand a young woman swimming now. It really got decimated and other people do a lot of shark attacks. So I said, so there’s a shark 10 yards away from the boat, 10 yards or here, do I get electrocuted if the boat is sinking? Water goes over the battery, the boat is sinking. Do I stay on top of the boat and get electrocuted or do I jump over by the shark and not get electrocuted? Because I will tell you he didn’t know the answer. He said, you know, nobody’s ever asked me that question. I said I think it’s a good question. I think there’s a lot of electric current coming through that water. But you know what I’d do if there was a shark or you get electrocuted? I’ll take electrocution every single time.”
As the presidential debate nears, the Biden-Harris campaign’s strategy of using Trump’s words to highlight his inconsistencies and controversial viewpoints continues to shape the political discourse. The team’s focus on humor and irony aims to underscore the contrasts between the candidates and memorably engage voters. “Trump’s incoherent rants and reckless comments speak for themselves and highlight the clear choice Americans face in this election,” the Biden-Harris team stated.