Trump’s moves in recent days make clear that the president has decided to revive the disruptive themes of his 2016 bid, aimed at branding his opponent as a corrupt member of the Washington establishment and himself as an insurgent problem-solver. It’s a message that often has seemed incongruent with the present reality as Trump leads the federal government’s response to the worst crisis in a generation.

In recent days, as the coronavirus death toll has approached 100,000, Trump has pushed conspiracy theories alleging criminality by his predecessor, made baseless charges of voter fraud, accused dozens of people of felonies, used taxpayer-funded events to advance his political message and fanned coronavirus culture wars over issues such as face masks and church closings…

A senior administration official said that part of Trump’s campaign will include linking Biden to an alleged attempt to hamstring the incoming administration before Trump was inaugurated.

“The narrative is going to be they set us up to fail from day one,” the official said. “The swamp was trying to stop the outsider president. We were able to succeed, but before we were even inaugurated, this is what we were up against.”