2016 repeat? Trump revives Clinton playbook to battle Biden

Accusations of a "deep state" conspiracy. Allegations of personal and family corruption. Painting an opponent as a Washington insider not to be trusted.

It's 2016 again. Or at least that's President Donald Trump's hope.

Trump and his allies are dusting off the playbook that helped defeat Hillary Clinton, reviving it in recent days as they try to frame 2020 as an election between a dishonest establishment politician and a political outsider being targeted for taking on the system.

This time, however, the so-called outsider is the sitting president of the US.

Eager to distract from the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 89,000 Americans and crippled the economy, Trump and his advisers have started their fog machine again, amplified by conservative media as it was during the Russia probe and the impeachment investigation.

Their latest target: the president's likely general election foe, Joe Biden, in an urgent effort to drive up his negative approval ratings less than six months before the election.

The strategy already centred on playing up allegations that Biden's son, Hunter, profited off the vice presidency.

Trump recently added Biden's ties to China, the country the White House now squarely blames for the spread of COVID-19. And it kicked into overdrive last week when Trump seized upon revelations that Biden was informed of the investigation of ties between Russia and Michael Flynn, a senior Trump official, as evidence of a plot to undermine a presidency before it began.

Flynn's so-called unmasking, a common request by a government official for an intelligence agency to identify someone in contact with a foreigner under surveillance, became the centrepiece of unprecedented attacks by Trump on his predecessor.

Trump said, without evidence, that Barack Obama - and, by extension, his vice president - had perpetrated the greatest political scam, hoax in the history of our country."