Biden campaign, DNC restart Republican convention counterprogramming after Trump assassination attempt
Joe Biden Deputy Campaign Manager Quentin Fulks says rhetoric "has not changed" in light of Trump assassination attempt.
MILWAUKEE - President Biden's re-election campaign is getting back to business.
After pausing "all outbound communications" and pulling down its TV ads in the aftermath of Saturday's attempted assassination of former President Trump at his rally in western Pennsylvania, Biden's re-election team and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) began resuming campaign activities on Tuesday.
As first reported by Fox News, the DNC launched billboards near the site of this week's Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
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The messaging push by the national party committee highlights what they call President Biden's "winning record."
The Democratic National Committee on Tuesday launched billboards in Milwaukee, near the site of the Republican National Convention. (DNC)
The president is spending Tuesday in the crucial western swing state of Nevada - where he'll address two key constituencies that are part of the Democratic Party base - Black voters at an NAACP conference and Latino voters at a UnidosUS conference.
Meanwhile, Vice President Harris will also aim to counter-program the GOP convention, with campaign stops Wednesday and Thursday in the crucial swing states of Michigan and North Carolina.
Biden campaign texts to supporters resumed on Monday, including two spotlighting Trump's naming of Sen. JD Vance of Ohio as his running mate.
"How does a guy who used to say that Donald Trump and his policies were 'reprehensible' become Donald Trump's running mate?" one of the fundraising texts reads, as it pointed to critical comments Vance, a top Senate supporter of the former president, made about Trump years ago.
TV ads by the Biden campaign could resume as early as Tuesday. And after holding off on Monday, the Biden campaign and the DNC on Tuesday started news conferences near the GOP convention.
TRUMP ANNOUNCES JD VANCE AS HIS 2024 RUNNING MATE
Tuesday's news conference, which included Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey and AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler, painted contrasts between Biden and Trump over the economy, abortion and protecting democracy.
Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey speaks at a Biden campaign/DNC news conference in Milwaukee, near the Republican National Convention, on July 16, 2024. Standing behind Booker is Biden principal deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks. (Fox News Digital - Paul Steinhauser)
Both Biden and Trump and their campaigns have been trying to tone down the rhetoric and lower the temperature on the campaign trail, in the wake of the deadly shooting at the Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
But at the news conference, Biden principal deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks said their message hasn't been altered in the wake of the Trump assassination attempt.
"It hasn't changed. I would say that we've been focused on talking about the issues, reproductive freedom, workers rights, Social Security, Medicare, the economy, a fair tax code," Fulks said in answer to a question from Fox News.
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Fulks emphasized that Biden and Harris have been "very clear on their vision when it comes to the agenda that they want to put forward for Americans. Our campaign has been talking about that for months since the re-election was announced. And we're going to continue to do so, as the president said. This is how democracy works. We're going to continue to have a candid conversation about the stark contrast."
Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump and Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio react during Day 1 of the Republican National Convention (RNC), at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on July 15, 2024. (REUTERS/Mike Segar)
On Monday, the Biden campaign and the president quickly criticized Trump's naming of Vance to the GOP national ticket. Vance is a disciple of Trump's American First agenda and a MAGA world champion.
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Biden told reporters that Vance was "a clone of Trump on the issues." And the president's campaign argued that Vance was selected because he would "do what [former Vice President] Mike Pence wouldn’t on January 6: bend over backwards to enable Trump and his extreme MAGA agenda, even if it means breaking the law and no matter the harm to the American people."
The Trump campaign pushed back.
"I think that response, given the events that have transpired in this country where President Trump had an assassination attempt on his life, for the sitting U.S. president to be calling for anything other than unity, but instead using this opportunity to attack President Trump's new vice presidential nominee, go after him on policy, it seems really out of touch, really in poor taste," Deputy Communications Director Caroline Sunshine argued in an interview with Fox News Digital.
Fox News Digital's Andrew Mark Miller and Fox News' Deirdre Heavey contributed to this report.
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