Biden is traveling more, to be sure. He shows up in Pennsylvania, Michigan, or Florida. Reading straight from crib cards, he recites his grand achievements that few others detect. His audience is local media and a modest gaggle of what Politico called “fawning supporters.” 

How does preaching to choir members gather new support? Which he's going to need this time.

Then, Biden wanders home to Delaware, which is why he visits handy Pennsylvania so often. He’s still spending about 40 percent of his time on vacation.

Truth is, Democrats’ legal designs to cripple a Trump presidential campaign by tying him up in trials and hearings is floundering big-time. So far,the indictments have boosted his approvals.

That’s because Trump remains a media magnet wherever he is in his trademark blue suit and blue or red tie. He knows it. Media knows it. But it’s in their own self-interest to detail whatever he says or does because it’s great for their business.

As a result, Trump can campaign from the courthouse steps or from behind pedestrian barriers. He meets off-camera with foreign leaders at Trump Tower, where his political rise began on a down escalator. He does radio interviews by phone, knowing he’ll be covered as thoroughly as I am by sunscreen at the beach. 

Trump was loudly cheered at a union meeting and scored bounteous positive coverage by visiting a Harlem bodega whose owner was charged with murder by the same district attorney prosecuting Trump.

Trump can answer media questions on the way in and out of the courthouse. Or drop some bomb to media, as he did so effectively leaving and entering the White House to thoroughly dominate news cycles. 

Then, of course, there is social media where Trump has access to nearly seven million followers on Truth Social and 87 million on Twitter, where his son Don Jr. is quite actively involved with his 11 million followers. Media monitor both and spread any news.

It's quite a contrast in presidential access with Biden, who has for obvious reasons done the fewest interviews of any modern chief executive and virtually all of them are softball chats. 

Any time you see a U.S. president seeking reelection turn down a Super Bowl quickie before more than 123 million Americans, as Biden did last winter, you know he fears a fumble.

To be honest, what tepid interest there is in Joe Biden’s “campaign” is tied closely to anticipation of his next verbal or physical stumble. They erupt virtually daily, sometimes in multiples.

All politicians are briefed on each event’s expectations. But Biden’s detailed notes are not brief, including reminders to say "Hello" and sit in the empty chair, as well as select reporters to call on and their questions in advance. I routinely told pols my topics of interest so I got fuller answers, but never the questions.

The president now wears special shoes, supposedly to prevent more falling. He uses the short stairs to board Air Force One because it has fewer steps to trip on and it’s partly obscured. 

And the president’s handlers have now resorted to walking him out of the White House in groups, theoretically disrupting sole focus on the 81-year-old’s lonely, old-man shuffle across the broad South Lawn.

Which tells you that much of the Biden White House campaign message is defensively cosmetic to disguise his weaknesses.

Despite a judge’s gag order, on the other hand, Trump gets his message of legal persecution out at every “hush money” court appearance.  And it's selling.

“It’s a very unfair situation," Trump told reporters. “We’re locked up in a courtroom, and this guy’s out there campaigning, if you call it campaigning.”

And Biden serves voters serial examples of his ongoing decline in cognitive and speaking skills.

At one point last week, the president made another unforced error. Howard Stern asked if he would debate Trump this year. Biden said flat-out that he would. Previously, he carefully conditioned participation on Trump’s “behavior.”

How do you think this commander in chief would fare on national TV for 90 minutes taking unrehearsed questions without scripted replies?

Here’s five minutes of a nightmare video showing why Joe Biden's handlers (and silent party bigs) should be terrified of debates. The president himself probably thinks he's hitting home runs. Leave your reaction in the Comments below. 

Here’s 5 minutes showing why Biden and his handlers are terrified of debates. pic.twitter.com/t8jrISxKpG

— GOP (@GOP) April 26, 2024

I’ve written about presidential debates here before. They began in 1960 as substantive discussions of policy. We’ve had them ever since, except for 1972, when incumbent Richard Nixon didn’t think George McGovern was worthy of the national exposure. 

That worked well for Nixon, who received 61 percent of the popular vote to McGovern’s 38 percent, with 520 Electoral votes to the Democrat’s 17. The same for Trump, who ducked all GOP primary debates this cycle for the same reason and coasted to presumed victory.

Media love presidential debates because they become TV events, the easiest and cheapest form of news coverage. They attract large viewerships and, thus, large ad revenues.

But they have now deteriorated into 90-minute reality shows with gotcha questions from news celebrities and rehearsed candidate zingers to reap sound bites. This adds little to voters’ understanding of candidate views beyond appearances.

And they usually contain some ridiculous show-biz questions more suitable for beauty contests: “As president, how would you bring peace to the Middle East? You have 30 seconds.”

In these politically polarized days, debates seem unlikely to convince anyone either way. Proponents of each candidate need not actually listen to the exchanges. They will see what they want to see in both men, positive for their guy, negative for the other.

The debate issue, however, is useful for the cocky Trump to distract from his legal troubles, to display a hunger to win, which Americans like, and to highlight the widespread expectation that a weak Biden would look as lost as he did in the video clips above.

Democrats and their media sympathizers have been trying without success to cripple Donald Trump the politician since even before the 2016 upset election: Russiagate, orchestrated Deep State leaks, two pointless House impeachments.

This cycle, those same strategists counted on their coordinated wave of lawfare cases to cripple the Trump campaign. For expert, detailed dissection of the current New York City "hush money" trial and its motives, I recommend Byron York’s analysis here. Even a CNN talking head sees weakness in the current criminal case against Trump, which the feds declined to pursue.

It must be frustrating for those analysts to see that, so far, the opposite is happening — voters are seeing through the concerted political attempt to set Trump up legally in his trial for falsifying business records.  

A new CNN poll asked respondents if they thought Trump was being treated the same as other criminal defendants. Only 13 percent said he is. Forty-four percent were confident the jury would reach a fair verdict. However, 56 were not.

Media have been hopefully touting a slight uptick nationally in Biden’s approval after he shouted the State of the Union. But then Gallup compared Biden’s job approval for his 13^th quarter in office (38.7 percent) with the last nine presidents. Biden’s was the worst, even below Trump's. 

Gallup also noted that with one exception (Obama), each of the presidents scoring under 50 percent lost their reelection bid. So now, two of those under 50 percent seem set to face each other. That’s our choice this time.

The rematch will reveal who's the winner at losing.