Biden campaign fires Trump's lines of attack back at him

Four years after the Covid pandemic sent America into a standstill, President Joe Biden’s campaign is looking to co-opt a common question posed by former President Donald Trump and his allies: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”

Trump asked his 6.7 million followers on Truth Social that question earlier this week, using it to drive contrasts between Biden and Trump’s records on the economy and the border. But the Biden-Harris campaign plans to highlight key moments from four years ago in an effort to flip the question back onto Trump, seeing a golden opportunity to exploit his handling of the pandemic.

The Biden campaign made a statement Friday morning highlighting Trump’s pledge four years ago to the day to “terminate” the Affordable Care Act, roughly 10 days after the World Health Organization formally declared Covid a global pandemic.

“Four years ago today, Trump was trying to throw millions of Americans off their insurance while Americans were dying by the thousands of Covid-19, even more Americans were infected, and hospitals were reaching a breaking point,” Biden-Harris senior spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said in a statement.

On Thursday, the campaign released a digital ad that paired images from the early days of the pandemic with audio of Trump suggesting disinfectant as a treatment, downplaying concerns over the number of Covid-related deaths at the time, and dismissing questions from reporters about his handling of the crisis.

And Biden is test-driving the strategy on the stump while speaking at fundraisers in Texas.

“Just a few days ago, he asked the famous question, 'Are you better off today than you were yesterday?' Well, Donald, I’m glad you asked that question,” Biden said during a campaign reception in Houston on Thursday.

Biden pointed to Trump’s handling of the pandemic and a debunked claim that Trump suggested the injection of bleach as a treatment option.

“He must’ve done it,” Biden joked.

It comes amid a broader effort by Biden and his campaign to co-opt language made popular by Trump and the Republicans.

In a bid to highlight that Biden held more campaign events this month than Trump, Biden’s campaign accused the former president of “hiding in his basement” — a line Trump and his allies frequently deployed about Biden in 2020.

The campaign has also turned “Brandon” — a code word used by Republicans to insult Biden — into a kind of internet alter-ego and a core component of his social media branding, launching a “Dark Brandon” account on X and releasing several “Dark Brandon”-branded memes.

A senior Biden-Harris campaign official told NBC News the campaign will continue to highlight “key moments from four years ago throughout the month of April.”

Those moments will include headlines reminding voters of rising crime and toilet paper shortages toward the end of Trump’s term and footage reminding voters of the “chaos” of the pandemic in 2020.

“Americans remember March Madness, proms, weddings, and celebrations being canceled, waiting in line for toilet paper and essentials, businesses shutting down, and losing loved ones — all because Trump failed to prepare for and then couldn’t lead when we needed him the most,” Biden campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa said. “The only thing to happen four years ago to make Americans’ lives better was Donald Trump losing to Joe Biden.”

In a statement, Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt cited higher mortgage rates, illegal border crossings, the war in Ukraine and other foreign conflicts to argue the U.S. was better off under Trump prior to Covid-19.

“Americans know Biden has been a disaster and they were far better off under President Trump, which is why President Trump continues to crush Biden in the polls,” Leavitt said.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com