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Twenty-eight hours. That’s all it took to turn around a one-minute campaign ad for Donald Trump after Joe Biden’s weird intervention on Tuesday. While Trump himself had all sorts of fun yesterday flipping Biden’s script on his supporters being “garbage,” his new campaign spot hammers both Biden and Kamala Harris for their campaign of “hate” against the American people.

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Or half of us, anyway:

That may be an effective closing message — assuming they can get it on the air in time to matter. Getting the turn-around in that fast of a time frame certainly helps, of course. One minor quibble: Why not include the actual video of Biden’s remarks? It’s not as if there’s much doubt as to what Biden meant in the moment, after all, even while the media keeps trying to spin it as “seemingly referred to supporters of the Republican nominee as ‘garbage’,” as Time Magazine ‘reported’ today. 

Time at least covers the quote honestly. Note that they’re not inserting the West Wing Apostrophe nor treating the next sentence as some sort of modifying clause:

“The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters,” Biden said, further criticizing Trump’s treatment of Latinos as “unconscionable” and “un-American.”

Not much nuance there, although most of the media is doing their level best to Hail The Mystery Apostrophe, regurgitate the stutter excuse, or claim that a warm-up comic is more representative of a political candidate than the sitting president speaking about his vice-president.

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The counter-argument to leaving this clip out of the ad is that voters want to hear from the candidates in their closing arguments. And in that sense, this ad really does stick the landing. It sums up the culture-war aspects of a populist running against the progressive-elite clique and the media that fronts for them. Trump hammered that point home even better at the rally yesterday while wearing his orange vest, as Time concludes:

Whether Biden’s remarks will significantly affect the election outcome remains uncertain. But in a deadlocked race, every word counts. As Harris seeks to present herself as a leader who can bridge divides, she now faces the burden of explaining Biden’s comments while maintaining her vision for an inclusive America.

“They have called us racist, bigots, fascists, deplorables, irredeemables, Nazis, and they called me Hitler,” Trump said in Green Bay. “They bullied you, they’ve demonized us, they’ve censored us, they’ve de-platformed us, and they weaponized the power of our own government against all of us. … This Tuesday is your chance to stand up and declare you are not going to take it anymore.”

The Howard Beale touch is particularly well calculated, even if few people recognize it from the 1976 film Network.

But will the remarks affect the outcome, even if Trump manages to flood the zone with Biden’s “garbage” attack? Frank Luntz, who hasn’t exactly been enthusiastic about Trump’s candidacy, absolutely believes it will. He told CNN yesterday that Biden likely cost Harris the election:

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KEILAR: Yeah, they’re seeing it in North Carolina. I was just talking to someone there, and there is some worry for sure. These polls that we’re looking at here and we’re talking about Frank, notably, they were done before President Biden made his comments, seemingly describing Trump supporters as, quote, “garbage.” The Harris campaign is trying to downplay the effect of those comments. Of course they are. But I wonder if you think that those comments are going to move voters.

LUNTZ: It’s going to be huge because this is not some comedian saying something stupid and offensive at a rally where he should have been basically disinvited. This is the President of the United States endorsing his Vice President saying something.

And I know that there’s different interpretations about what he said. It’s still inappropriate. He still shouldn’t be doing it. And I’ve watched Trump already seize this. The basket of deplorables was significant, was meaningful in 2016. In 2024, I can promise you that this is going to drive Trump turnout. He’s doing it already, I can see — I’m sure there’s going to be ads on as soon as tonight about this. This may be a turning point for those final 3%, and that’s all it is who still need to be persuaded.

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Luntz called the timing of the ad almost perfectly. We’ll see if they can get this message out to the persuadables still left, but there’s little doubt that Biden just gave Trump his closing message: “This Tuesday is your chance to stand up and declare you are not going to take it anymore.” Maybe Trump will send the Bidens a nice fruit basket for Thanksgiving if it pays off.