Nothing scares candidates and their campaign teams more than the thought that some unexpected crisis will occur in the last few weeks or days before the election. How will that event affect the outcome? What can they do to anticipate the unexpected? What can they do to be ready?
The two major presidential campaigns usually have teams of experts secretly meeting to anticipate crises and prepare for them. In this series, we imagine the events those teams could be planning about and how the staff may be “inoculating” their candidates.
Crisis 1: A Terrorist Attack in the US by a team that crossed in from Mexico
The Scenario: On Friday, October 31st, five days from the presidential election, a Halloween street party in Washington’s Georgetown neighborhood is attacked by terrorists detonating parked car bombs and then gunning down civilians and first responders. Two surviving and captured terrorists tell the FBI that they are ISIS-K members from Afghanistan who infiltrated the United States by easily crossing the Arizona-Mexico border. Twenty-three Americans are dead, and forty-two are injured. By the day of the attack, a third of registered voters had already cast votes.
On far-right social media sites, an allegation is spreading that the Intelligence Community had warned the White House that an attack team of ISIS-K (for Koramshah) had entered the US from Mexico in May, but the White House had instructed that the story be suppressed and not briefed to the public, state and local police.
“Protect America PAC” releases a 60-second ad on network television, showing graphic video of the Georgetown attack, a picture of a befuddled-looking Biden, and then a clip of Trump addressing a rally yelling, “Make America Safe Again.”
What should Biden do if this happened? After the Georgetown attack, Biden should go to the attack site, to a hospital where victims are being treated, and to a memorial service. He should meet with his national security team in the Situation Room, canceling his campaign schedule. Saturday evening, Biden should address the nation with a moving speech that promises to “hunt down the perpetrators and make them pay.” He should announce a nationwide terrorism alert, but assure voters they will be safe going to the polls.
On Sunday, Biden should go to FBI Headquarters for an update on the investigation and hunt for accomplices. He then should travel to the Pentagon, where he would meet in the “tank” with the Joint Chiefs.
Monday morning, speaking from the White House podium, Biden should announce that a B-2 squadron has struck at ISIS-K camps in Afghanistan and that FBI and Mexican federal police have taken suspects into custody (if they had), charging them with facilitating the cross-border movement of the terrorists.
Inoculating Biden: If the Biden campaign leadership thought that this scenario might possibly occur, they would have Biden meet with counter-terrorism chiefs, publicize the meeting, and then follow up with a new presidential directive on counter-terrorism and a speech about his security agenda. His message would be: Do Not Let Our Guard Down.
Privately, the Biden national security team would direct the National Counter-terrorism Center, the FBI, and other counter-terrorism officials to step up efforts to identify terrorist “sleeper cells.”
Biden should also often make a point that he would have done much more at the border except that Trump personally killed the Immigration Reform Bill that was written by a bi-partisan team led by Republican James Lankford of Oklahoma.
What should Trump do if this happened? Trump’s goals in this scenario are to look strong, make Biden seem weak, and tie the attacks to Biden’s twin failures: Afghanistan and the Border.
The Trump team would claim that Biden had promised that the US could and would still go after terrorists in Afghanistan even after the US troop withdrawal, but they failed to do so. Trump would say that if he had been allowed to complete the Mexican wall, terrorists could not “just prance across the border to kill our people.”
Republicans in Congress would call for an investigation of the “repeated Biden security lapses” and call on Governors to mobilize their National Guard units to protect the polls from possible follow-on terrorist attacks.
Trump should visit the attack site, victims in hospitals, and memorial services. He should say that this never would have happened if he were president. He should promise that if elected, he would close the border and deport all illegal aliens, which would include “likely terrorists.” He should promise to wipe out the remnants of ISIS but do so without “getting our troops mired down in some Middle East failed states.”
Inoculating Trump: To prepare for such a scenario, Trump should create a team of counter-terrorism advisors, meet with them on camera, and issue a statement, plan, white paper, or something similar. The theme should be that Biden has taken his eye off the ball on terrorism. It should mention the risk of terrorists entering the US across the “porous border.”
Bottom Line: This scenario puts Biden at a huge disadvantage, but Trump could overplay his hand and be seen to be taking advantage of the tragedy.
Richard Clarke had roles in the Defense Department, State Department (Assistant Secretary), and White House National Security Council (for three presidents) for thirty years. He then was Chairman of the Middle East Institute for ten years.