Every December, the federal government releases what’s known as the Point-in-Time Count, which offers an estimate of the nation’s homeless population. It’s mid-May, and the report for 2025 still hasn’t been released.
At a congressional hearing this week, Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York pressed Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner for an answer. The more he was offered an opportunity to defend his record, the more Turner tried to talk about Joe Biden — to the point that Gillibrand became visibly gobsmacked by the secretary’s apparent inability to say anything else.
During the same hearing, Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington asked about the Trump administration’s proposed HUD budget cuts. Again, Turner responded by focusing on Biden, prompting Murray to note that his “go-to answer” for every question was a reference to the former Democratic president.
The display did little to calm concerns the Cabinet secretary might not be up to the job, but it was hard not to notice the familiarity of the circumstances.
At the other end of Capitol Hill this week, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum also testified, and he, too, tried to incorporate references to Biden into as many of his answers as possible. Last week, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins held a press conference in which she appeared fixated on Biden. Days earlier, during Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s congressional testimony, the Pentagon chief talked about Biden so incessantly that one member felt compelled to observe, “You seem to really like Joe Biden.”
When Food and Drug Administration chief Marty Makary resigned, he focused on Biden. When Spirit Airlines collapsed in response to rising fuel prices, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blamed Biden. When the White House released a bizarre report on the administration’s counterterrorism policy, it reflected what one journalist described as “an obsession with Joe Biden.” When the Justice Department released a document on the possible use of firing squads in federal executions, it included cheap and gratuitous references to Biden.
And all of these examples are just from the past few weeks.
Donald Trump hasn’t exactly been subtle about his unhealthy fixation with his immediate predecessor. Evidently, the illness has spread to his team.
It’s very easy to believe that the White House has directed officials to incorporate references to Biden into every public appearance, likely because Team Trump assumes that reminding the public about the unpopular former president might somehow benefit the unpopular incumbent president.
But if that’s the case, there are a couple of important flaws in this strategy: Not only is there no reason to assume the public will find any of it persuasive, there’s also the inconvenient fact that Biden’s public support never fell to the levels Trump is stuck at now.
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