Opinion | Biden will have to continue to draw sharp contrasts with Trump to win

Were he ever to consider a career in stand-up comedy, Joe Biden would be well advised to keep his day job. But delivering big laughs was not the president’s mission when he appeared Saturday night before a black-tie audience of 2,600 journalists and Washington power players at the White House correspondents’ dinner.

Almost from the start of his appearance in what is traditionally a light-hearted evening, Biden took the kind of personal swipes at his opponent that we have rarely heard from him. “The 2024 election’s in full swing and yes, age is an issue,” he said. “I’m a grown man running against a 6-year-old.”

Where he has ordered White House aides not to speak publicly about Donald Trump’s legal troubles, Biden himself mocked the seamy scandal that has the former president spending his days in a Manhattan courtroom. “I had a great stretch since the State of the Union. But Donald has had a few tough days lately. You might call it ‘stormy weather,’” Biden said, making an unsubtle reference to adult-film star Stormy Daniels, whose claims that she had an affair with Trump are at the center of the hush-money trial.

And towards the end, Biden chastised the media: “I’m sincerely not asking you to take sides. I’m asking you to rise up to the seriousness of the moment. Move past the horse race numbers and the gotcha moments and the distractions, the side shows that have come to dominate and sensationalize our politics, and focus on what’s actually at stake. … The stakes couldn’t be higher.”

Does this mark a pivot, a turn from the Uncle Joe genius that has been Biden’s personal brand? It sounded like it to me. And it comes at a moment when, for the first time in a while, Team Biden is feeling a few things going their way in this election.

The polls in which the president has trailed his predecessor have narrowed a bit since Biden’s State of the Union address in March, but it’s not worth reading too much into slight shifts in the numbers. The race is close, and it appears likely to remain so all the way until November.

And Biden’s campaign is building a significant financial advantage over Trump’s, even as the former president’s legal bills mount.

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, the House Republicans’ sputtering impeachment drive against Biden has become an embarrassment.

But at least as important as any of that is the fact that a president who came to office promising to make Washington work again is showing some tentative progress in that regard. Most notable was his successful effort to bring House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) around on badly needed aid to Ukraine, which paid off spectacularly with a big bipartisan vote in favor of sending $61 billion to Kyiv.

Biden has had some other victories as well, including on funding to avert a government shutdown in March and, more recently, reauthorization of a government surveillance program that the MAGA forces on Capitol Hill were determined to kill.

Will voters give him credit for any of this? They might, but they haven’t yet. As Gallup reported last week, his average job approval rating in the 13th quarter of his presidency is mired at 38.7 percent, which is lower than any of his past nine predecessors at this point in their presidencies.

“With about six months remaining before Election Day, Biden stands in a weaker position than any prior incumbent, and thus faces a taller task than they did in getting reelected,” Gallup’s Jeffrey M. Jones wrote.

Meanwhile, Biden is struggling to hold together traditional Democratic constituencies, including non-Whites and young people, a challenge that is not getting any easier as college campuses are being roiled by protests over the war in Gaza and Biden’s support for Israel’s military campaign there.

Indeed, as guests in their formal attire made their way into the correspondents’ dinner on Saturday night, they were greeted by hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters shouting, “Shame on you!”

Given all of this, the best option for Biden now — perhaps his only one — is not to hope the country will begin to recognize his achievements. It is to start drawing a sharper, no-holds-barred contrast with Trump and what it would mean if he is allowed to return to the White House.

To quote one of the president’s own favorite phrases, that’s no joke.