Biden is wavering. Trump’s plan? Let it happen.

As Joe Biden tries to calm the storm engulfing his presidential re-election campaign, he ran into an early snag: referring to “Vice President Trump” during a press conference Thursday when he meant Kamala Harris.

Within minutes, Donald Trump was mocking the mistake on his social media platform, Truth Social, with an accompanying clip. “Good job, Joe!” he wrote.

This is exactly the response voters expected from Trump, who has spent years insulting the president, 81.

Yet over the past two weeks, as Biden has been fighting for his political future, Trump has been unusually silent, leaving Democrats to bicker among themselves.

Republican strategists attribute the silence to Trump’s newfound discipline — a change from his 2016 and 2020 campaigns.

“He’s done a great job of not talking much about the Democratic crisis,” said Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist and former senior Senate and House leadership aide. “Why take the shovel away when they’re digging their own hole?”

Trump, 78, has not been completely reclusive. Since Biden’s poor debate performance in late June, he has given several radio interviews, appeared at rallies in Virginia and Florida, and posted regularly on Truth Social.

“The radical left Democrats are in chaos,” Trump said at a rally in Miami on Tuesday. “They can’t decide which of their nominees is unfit to be president, Sleepy Crooked Joe Biden or Smiling Kamala.”

He also challenged the president to a golf match, claimed all airports in the United States were dirty, called the cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter “adorable”, said that visitors to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington were often “shot, robbed and raped”, claimed 45,000 people attended an event in Miami when in fact there were closer to 700, and wondered why “we don’t eat bacon anymore”.

But experts say Republicans have been more restrained than they have been in the past. Some have suggested that Trump’s team may even delay the vice presidential pick to avoid taking the spotlight away from Biden’s problems.

“If you compare this strategy and the execution [in] “This campaign going into 2016 and 2020 is much more strategic, much more disciplined,” said Kevin Madden, a Republican communications expert who worked on Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign.

Amid Democratic divisions over Biden, Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s 2016 campaign manager, said Trump’s approach since the debate has been effective.

“The Trump campaign did a great job of letting the Biden campaign self-destruct,” he said.

That self-destruction may have been what the Trump campaign was counting on from the start. The Republican plan to win over the American people has long relied on voters’ well-documented fears about Mr. Biden’s age.

Speak to Tim Alberta of The AtlanticTrump campaign manager Chris LaCivita said he planned for a “very visual” matchup where Biden was seen as old and frail while Trump appeared strong and energetic.

“The debate is exactly what they want,” Mr. Madden said. “They have the perfect split screen that can last forever.”

Several recent polls have shown Trump leading Biden — albeit narrowly.

But there is concern within the Trump camp that concerns about Mr Biden’s health have peaked too soon.

If he were replaced by a younger candidate, Trump would lose two key lines of attack — age and weakness. And it would be harder to directly blame a new candidate for the president’s perceived policy failures: Mr. Biden scores poorly with voters on the economy and the crisis at the southern border.

“They are quietly hoping, fingers crossed, that Biden is the nominee,” said Trump campaign strategist Ron Bonjean. “They feel they are going to win the election with Biden as their opponent.”

Some of Trump’s closest surrogates appear to want Biden to stay in office. On Thursday, as Democrats parsed the impact of the president’s defiant press conference, Trump’s son Don Jr. offered rare praise.

Mr Biden’s record “isn’t too bad”, he said. “He’s done well enough to be able to continue – he doesn’t want to go.”

Last week, Trump’s daughter-in-law and Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump said Biden’s removal would be “antithetical to the democratic process.”

But Mr. Bonjean and other Republican experts have made clear that if Republicans have had a hard time choosing a new nominee, Democrats will have an even harder time choosing one.

“Yes, it will cause some disruption to the Trump campaign. But it’s not the disruption that the Democrats are going through,” said Douglas Heye, a Republican strategist who served as chief of staff to former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.

“They have to find a way to nominate someone else… they have to build a whole new structure from scratch.”

Meanwhile, Republicans are reviewing the records of Ms. Harris and other potential replacements, he said. “They’re not necessarily prepared for this, but they are prepared.”

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

Heye said the convention — four days of raucous partying centered around a candidate who loves the spotlight — would make it easier for Trump to tout the benefits of his strategy of staying quiet.

“If you commit to keeping your candidate under wraps for a long period of time, there has to be a payment later,” he said. “His leadership can say, ‘You have all of next week, it’s going to be Donald Trump’s show.’”