Over the past week, the president’s allies have trained its fire on him, seeking to undermine his credibility and use Klain’s high-profile role as the face of Biden’s coronavirus response to bolster their own arguments about Biden’s own competence.

“Ron Klain is the puppeteer. To define Gepetto is to define Pinocchio,” said Michael Caputo, a former adviser to Trump, who pointed out the Biden campaign released the Klain video at the same time that Biden had gone dark during the campaign.

The attacks on Klain are driven by a sense of urgency. While a new poll shows a majority approves of Trump’s coronavirus response, it also reveals that Americans, by a 20-point margin, believe he initially reacted too slowly to the crisis — a central component of Klain’s public critique.

“Not one Trump supporter believes Joe Biden is capable of a coherent thought,” Caputo said. “But Ron Klain is.”