Biden is in trouble. Trump’s plan? Let it happen.

As Joe Biden tried to calm the storm engulfing his presidential reelection campaign, he hit a roadblock: He referred to “Vice President Trump” during a press conference Thursday when he was actually referring to Kamala Harris.

Within minutes, Donald Trump had mocked the gaffe on his social network, Truth Social, by posting a video clip. “Good job, Joe!” he wrote.

It’s the kind of reaction voters expect from Trump, who has spent years insulting the president, 81.

And yet, over the past two weeks, as Mr. Biden has fought for his political life, Trump has remained uncharacteristically silent, leaving Democrats to argue among themselves.

Republican strategists say the relative silence is due to Trump’s new discipline – a change from his 2016 and 2020 campaigns.

“He’s played his part brilliantly by not talking much about the Democratic crisis,” said Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist and former senior adviser to Senate and House leadership. “Why take the shovel away from them when they’re digging their own hole?”

At 78, Donald Trump has not yet gone underground. Since Biden’s poor performance in the debate in late June, he has given a few radio interviews, appeared at rallies in Virginia and Florida and continued to post regularly on Truth Social.

“The radical left Democratic Party is divided in chaos,” Donald Trump said at a campaign rally in Miami on Tuesday. “They can’t decide which of their candidates is less fit to be president, the sleepy, corrupt Joe Biden or the laughing Kamala.”

He also challenged the president to a golf match, claimed that all US airports were dirty, said that visitors to Washington DC end up being “shot, assaulted and raped”, claimed that 45,000 people attended the Miami event when there were nearly 700, and wondered why “we don’t eat bacon anymore”.

But experts say the Republican has shown restraint compared to his past behavior. Some have suggested that the Trump camp might even delay choosing his vice president to avoid distracting from Mr. Biden’s problems.

“If you compare this strategy and its execution (in) this campaign to 2016 and 2020, it’s much more strategic, much more disciplined,” said Kevin Madden, a Republican communications expert who worked on Mitt Romney’s presidential bids.

As the Democratic Party splits over Mr Biden’s candidacy, Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s 2016 campaign manager, said Trump’s approach since the debate has been effective.

“The Trump campaign did a remarkable job of allowing the Biden campaign to self-destruct,” he said.

Perhaps this implosion is what the Trump campaign was counting on all along. The Republican plan to win over the American people has for some time been based on voters’ well-documented fears about Mr. Biden’s age.

Speaking to The Atlantic’s Tim Alberta, Trump campaign manager Chris LaCivita said he had planned an “extraordinarily visual” matchup where Mr Biden was seen as old and frail while Trump appeared strong and vigorous.

“The debate was exactly what they wanted,” Madden said. “They got the perfect split screen that would last.”

Several recent polls consistently put Trump ahead – if only narrowly – of Mr Biden.

But some in the Trump camp worry that concern about Mr Biden’s health has peaked too soon.

If he were to be replaced by a younger candidate, Trump would lose two key arguments for his candidacy: age and fragility. And it would be harder to directly blame a new candidate for the president’s policy failures: Mr. Biden performs poorly with voters on the economy and the crisis at the southern border.

“They’re silently hoping, fingers crossed, that Biden will be the nominee,” said Ron Bonjean, a Trump campaign strategist. “They think they’ll win the election with Biden as their opponent.”

Some of Trump’s inner circle appear to want Mr. Biden to stay in the White House. On Thursday, as Democrats analyzed the impact of the president’s provocative news conference, Trump’s son, Don Jr., offered rare praise.

Mr Biden’s performance was “not too bad”, he said. “He did well enough that he could stay on the team – he doesn’t want to leave.”

Last week, Trump’s daughter-in-law and Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump suggested that “it would go against the democratic process” if Mr Biden were impeached.

Still, Mr. Bonjean and other Republican pundits made clear that if it was difficult for Republicans to accept a new nominee, it would be even more difficult for Democrats to choose one.

“Yes, it will destabilize the Trump campaign a little bit. But they’re not as destabilized as the Democrats are,” said Douglas Heye, a Republican strategist who served as chief of staff to former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.

“They have to figure out how to appoint someone else… they have to build a whole new structure from scratch.”

Meanwhile, Republicans are combing through the records of Ms. Harris and other potential candidates to succeed her, he added. “They’re not necessarily prepared for this, but they’re preparing for it.”

Next week, at the Republican convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Trump will take center stage again, formally accepting his party’s nomination and delivering a prime-time speech that will set the tone for the final months of his campaign.

Mr. Heye suggested that the convention — four days of fanfare around a candidate who relishes the spotlight — will have made it easier to sell Trump on the benefits of the strategy of remaining largely silent.

“If you commit to keeping your candidate secret for an extended period of time, there has to be compensation later,” he said. “Their leaders can say, ‘You have all next week, it’s going to be the Donald Trump show.'”