Trump and Biden hunker down for 2024 bunker campaigns

Zoom in: Trump did two public campaign events in August. Biden has done one campaign rally since he announced his re-election campaign in April and given political remarks when receiving endorsements from environmental groups, reproductive rights organizations and labor unions.

Trump has opted for more private meetings at his golf club at Bedminster and posting face-to-camera web videos.

• Trump is doing significantly fewer public events than his 2024 challengers -- and the opponent he is likely to face in the fall.
• Instead of public events, Trump posted 55 videos on Instagram on topics including his indictments, "COVID tyrants," ISIS, his poll numbers, Rupert Murdoch, his former Attorney General Bill Barr, and one about important figures in American history.

Biden has focused on policy-focused presidential trips. A bonus: The campaign doesn't have to cover expenses.

• Most of Biden's public appearances happen in the middle of the day between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. — aides say his age sometimes limits his schedule.
• Biden has occasionally told friends that he felt tired, according to Frank Foer's new book "The Last Politician."
• White House spokesman Andrew Bates said: "While we strategically time public events to reach the nightly broadcast news audience, President Biden — who's about to take off for his latest trip around the world [landed in India on Friday] — works late, whether it's calling lawmakers to advocate for legislation or traveling to a war zone like Kyiv."

By the numbers: Biden has held comparatively few public events past 6 p.m., with 19 evening appearances from June to July this year, according to records kept by Mark Knoller, the former CBS News radio correspondent who serves as an unofficial chronicler of presidential schedules.

• By contrast, President Obama held 25 events after 6 p.m. over the same period in 2011.
• Overall, Obama was much more active than Biden, appearing at 63 events during the three summer months before his reelection campaign, compared to 43 for Biden.
• Biden was slightly ahead of Trump, who held 39 events in the same stretch of 2019, according to Knoller.

Between the lines: Both Biden and Trump are largely avoiding interviews except with mostly friendly media.

• Biden has given four interviews this summer, according to Martha Joynt Kumar, an emeritus professor at Towson University. And sometimes opts for the fleeting questions from the press pool.

As indictments piled up over the past two months, Trump has avoided tough interviews and opted for ideologically sympathetic hosts — Tucker Carlson, Glenn Beck, and Hugh Hewitt.

• When Hewitt asked Trump about the documents case, Trump denied wrongdoing and said: "I don't talk about anything ... I'm not telling you" — but added he'll testify at trial.
• Trump canceled a mid-August press conference where he'd vowed to respond to his indictment in Georgia, saying his lawyers thought it would be best to communicate through legal filings.
• Trump gave interviews to Semafor and Fox News' Bret Baier with a range of shifting defenses that legal experts warned could be used against him when he's tried on the classified documents charges.

What they're saying: "The President is running an aggressive and thoughtful official and campaign schedule that is in line with previous incumbent presidents at this point in the election cycle," said Kevin Munoz, a spokesperson for the Biden campaign.

• Trump's campaign didn't respond to a request for comment.

What's next: Next week features the first Trump interview with former Fox News host Megyn Kelly in seven years.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to include Biden's total number of summer interviews.