'Street fight': Ex-senator lays out why Biden shouldn’t 'treat Trump like he’s normal'

Ahead of President Joe Biden's State of the Union address Thursday night, former US senator and MSNBC analyst Claire McCaskill offered the president some advice during an interview with MSNBC's Deadline: White House host Nicolle Wallace for when it comes to dealing with his Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump.

"Donald Trump isn't in control of himself," Wallace said. "Not what he tweets, not what he says. So Donald Trump is going to be what Donald Trump is going to be. No self-regulation, no ideas, no agenda. There will just be tactics, each one more audacious than the other. The only person in charge of his destiny is Joe Biden."

The host continued, "[Biden] can take control of the age issue if he wants to. He can take control of this iseaI don't know if you want to say it on tv, but this idea of people think Trump is strong. And people think ax murderers have a lot of arm strength, but they do a tremendous amount of bloody damage. And the idea of portraying yourself as strong is about the fights you pick and the way you wage them."

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McCaskill replied, "Here's what Biden and, frankly, [former] President [Barack] Obama had a little bit of the same problems sometimes. He was so conscious of the office and what went with it."

Wallace emphasized, "Which is a beautiful problem."

The former senator continued, "They revere the office. They don't want to do anything that would tarnish how the office is perceived by the American people. You know, Biden's got a different problem than Obama had. The guy that was here before trashed it. He had political rallies on the lawn. He had his convention at the White House. It was crazy the way he politicized everything, the norms that were blown up — bringing people in and showing them things that shouldn't have seen in terms of foreign leaders. So, Biden can't treat Trump like he's normal. Biden has to treat him like he is somebody that he's in a street fight with. That doesn't come naturally to Joe Biden. How long did he go without saying Trump's name? Now he's gotten over that, but he's got to take it to the next level. He needs to be on the front foot. He these to be the aggressor and say, 'absolutely not, no briefings.' As long as you're under indictment, you do not get briefings. If you don't like it, pound sand."

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