WASHINGTON — As former President Donald Trump announced his third bid for the White House last month, President Joe Biden was on the other side of the world, convening an emergency meeting of world leaders following reports of explosions on Poland's border with Ukraine.
Trump, twice impeached and now facing several civil and criminal investigations, used an hourlong speech to offer a familiar refrain of attacks on his challengers and grievances about his electoral defeat. Biden, meanwhile, huddled with foreign leaders on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, to figure out how to prevent the Ukraine conflict from escalating.
White House aides and Democratic operatives are hoping for more of these split-screen moments ahead of a presidential campaign that could be a rematch of the 2020 contest. Trump's decision to jump into the race two years before election day sets up one of the longest election cycles in U.S. history, a timetable that forces Biden to be more strategic on when to engage directly with the former president and when to tune him out.
