There is an adage about Washington that if you stay here too long, you risk becoming the thing you started off scorning.
That old saw has taken on new life lately as President Trump finds himself confronting the same troubles that came to define his nemesis, former President Joe Biden — namely the perceptions that he was too old and that he had mishandled the economy and Americans’ concerns about it.
Trump has recently been filmed struggling to stay awake during a cabinet meeting and in the Oval Office. His press secretary is fielding constant questions about his health: She was asked why his hand is often bandaged; her answer was that he shakes lots of hands and takes lots of aspirin. And his aides are congratulating him for performing basic functions of the job. “It’s 7:00 p.m. on a Saturday night and President Trump is still in the Oval Office working,” Steven Cheung posted on X last week, adding that it was “truly remarkable to witness.”
It’s all very Biden-coded.
In some ways, so was the speech that Trump gave about the economy on Tuesday in Pennsylvania. He was there because his political advisers worry he may be making the same mistakes made by Biden, who insisted to voters that the economy was better than they realized and that they weren’t actually suffering as much as they felt they were.
Trump pretty much did exactly that on Tuesday, bragging about economic data while telling people that their children didn’t need “37 dolls” or lots of pencils. This was a day after he told Politico that he graded his economy an “A+++++.”
That struck some members of his party as callous. “You can’t gaslight people and tell them that their bills are affordable, and you can’t tell them that the economy is in A+++,” Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said to CBS as part of the MAGA heretic media tour she’s been on. “I think it’s insulting to people’s intelligence and I don’t care how may charts he wants to throw up.”
What’s curious about watching Trump become ensnared by the same perceptions that dragged down Biden is that Trump has continued to attack Biden for the very things that Trump is now being attacked about.
He keeps calling him “Sleepy Joe,” even as he’s the one dozing off. And he keeps railing about Biden’s economy even though Trump has been in office for nearly 11 months.
Hardly a day goes by that Biden’s name does not come flying out of Trump’s mouth. In fact, according to a review of all his speeches throughout the year, Tuesday’s was the one in which he mentioned Biden the most.
An analysis of his first 50 days in office conducted in March by The New York Times found that Trump mentioned the name “Biden” 6.32 times a day on average. At the cabinet meeting last week where Trump struggled to stay awake, he spoke about Biden eight times during one 20-minute window. That was more than 300 days into his second term.
The Moment
And speaking of Trump’s remarks this week in Pennsylvania: My colleague Doug Mills, a Times photographer, was on hand at the casino as the president spoke. His remarks were supposed to center on affordability, but he frequently wandered off topic. Doug captured him here performing a dance that was one of the hallmarks of his presidential campaign.
Using his patented “weave,” his remarks jumped from subject to subject: He attacked transgender Americans and electric cars. He accused Joe Biden of exacerbating illegal immigration. But he also conceded that Susie Wiles, his chief of staff, had told him recently, “We have to start campaigning, sir.”
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ONE LAST THING
Before he was mayor-elect, he played in a rec soccer league
When Zohran Mamdani played for a rec-league soccer team called the Talking Headers, he was known for his foot skills and powerful shooting.
But his penchant for ambitious, risky dribbles made some of his teammates roll their eyes.
Mamdani, now the mayor-elect of New York City, has long been obsessed with soccer, my colleague Andrew Keh writes. His fondness for the sport frequently bubbled up during his campaign — as he kicked a ball around in shirtsleeves, or swooned over his favorite English club, Arsenal.
As New York politics undergoes a generational shift, Andrew writes, it’s somehow fitting that the city has elected its first soccer-mad mayor.
Andrew Keh, Taylor Robinson and Ama Sarpomaa contributed reporting.
Shawn McCreesh is a White House reporter for The Times covering the Trump administration.
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