Trump hopes Biden’s 1996 vote on a tax break will make Puerto Rican voters forget Hurricane Maria

He began by claiming that a vaccine for the virus will be here soon, with tens of millions of doses by year’s end and everyone vaccinated by April. This is ambitious to the point of dubiousness, particularly given that no vaccine has yet been approved. Inoculating every American by April would be a feat requiring 25 vaccinations a second — if a virus is available for use on Nov. 1.

And yet this claim, obviously targeted at the voting public, was somehow not the most obvious campaign ploy. The winner of that prize was Trump’s sudden insistence that he was a great champion of the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico. “I have to say in a very nice way, very respectful way: I’m the best thing that ever happened to Puerto Rico,” he said. “Nobody even close.”

Just to make sure you’re not confused, it was, in fact, Donald John Trump, 45th president of the United States, making that claim. The Trump who repeatedly disparaged the island and its leaders in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in 2017. Who denied that the death toll from the storm was as heavy as it was. Who faced broad criticism of the federal government’s slow response to the disaster and exacerbated the problem by withholding promised assistance for months. Who complained about how much assistance Puerto Rico was getting, while exaggerating the amount. Who theorized that perhaps the island could be “divested” or somehow traded for Greenland.

He is the self-identified “best thing that ever happened” to the island.

The claim is even more ridiculous when considered in context. Trump was identifying himself as the island’s savior in contrast with former president Barack Obama and former vice president Joe Biden, his opponent in November’s election.

What had Biden done that made him so much worse for residents of Puerto Rico? Well, in 1996, he was one of 76 Senate votes in support of the Small Business Job Protection Act, which rescinded a tax break that benefited the island by allowing it to serve as a tax shelter. Every Democrat in the Senate at the time supported the bill, as did most of the Republican majority.

The Small Business Job Protection Act wasn’t focused only on Puerto Rico, mind you. It additionally increased the minimum wage, simplified the process for employers to set up 401(k) plans — a prominent part of Trump’s rhetoric on a normal day — and introduced new tax breaks, including one centered on adoptive parents.

Biden’s support for this bill is why Trump thinks Puerto Rican voters should instead view him as their defender.

Polling in Florida has Biden with a narrow lead. Trump’s announcement of new aid for Puerto Rico is clearly a ploy aimed at general-election voters — specifically, it’s safe to assume, Puerto Rican voters in Florida. There are about 250,000 voters from Puerto Rico living in Florida, according to data from L2, a political data firm. There are nearly two Democrats in that population for every Republican.

Trump’s probably aiming a bit wider with this pitch, really. Biden’s support among Hispanic and Latino voters in Florida is unusually weak for a Democrat, in part because of the state’s large Cuban American population. Trump’s making a big pitch for Hispanic and Latino votes generally, and this is part of that mix.

As an effort to woo Puerto Ricans, though, this seems like a shot in the dark. Is it likely that many of those forced to move to the mainland after the destruction of Maria will now be deliberating between Biden’s 1996 vote and Trump’s 2017, 2018 and 2019 actions and rhetoric?

By now, Trump’s deployment of his position and the White House in support of his candidacy is simply background noise, the sort of sharp break from historical practice that has been worn down to dullness through repeated use. A president bashing his general-election opponent from the executive mansion as he literally hands out millions of dollars to a targeted constituency is slightly less obviously political than his use of the White House as a backdrop for the Republican convention, but not by much.

Amazingly, though, it also seems unlikely to work.