The President, trailing in his reelection race as time ticks away, is trying everything to lure the presumptive Democratic nominee into a fight. His team taunts Biden for hiding in his basement during lockdown, and blast the 77-year-old as senile while Trump, 74, boasts about acing cognitive tests. Republicans claim Biden is China's pocket and accuse him of leading (or being led) by leftist anarchists, as Trump stokes a backlash against Black Lives Matter. And now that Trump has finally worn a mask, his flacks say he carries it off better than Biden, who's had one for weeks.Presidents seeking reelection must disqualify their rival as a potential replacement in the Oval Office. In 2012, Barack Obama's team went after Mitt Romney early and hard -- ruthlessly framing him as a heartless vulture capitalist -- an image the Republican later exacerbated with his own errors. George W. Bush eviscerated Democrat John Kerry as a ditherer, while allies shredded the Democrat's record as a Vietnam War hero, raising doubts about whether he was tough to lead a traumatized wartime nation only three years after 9/11.

But in the 2020 race, nothing seems to be sticking. Trump's mocking nickname for his foe -- "Sleepy Joe" -- is not cutting through like "Crooked Hillary," "Low Energy Jeb" and "Little Marco" did for rivals in 2016. And with Biden laying low, Trump is not getting the chance to weaken him: He needs the former vice president on TV all the time, making his signature verbal gaffes and stumbling into mistakes under the pressure.

A tale of two magic kingdoms

The jilted doctor

'50 years from now, people are going to be reflecting historically on this'

On Monday, speaking during a webinar with the Stanford School of Medicine, Dr. Anthony Fauci called the global coronavirus pandemic an epidemiologist's "worst nightmare." "One thinks about the worst nightmare of an infectious disease person who's interested in global health and outbreaks -- is the combination of a new microbe that has [a] spectacular ... degree of capability of transmitting, and also has a considerable degree of morbidity and mortality -- and here it is, it's happened," he said. "I think 50 years from now, people are going to be reflecting historically on this, the way we used to reflect on the 1918 outbreak," he said.

Speaking of phased reopenings...

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Donald Trump just can't land a punch on Joe Biden - CNN