There is no choice but to let Trump be Trump.
While Kamala Harris shook up the Democratic National Convention with her surprise appearance and brief speech to an enthusiastic audience, Donald Trump continued to attack his new opponent in sometimes bizarre ways.
He has ignored public advice from close Republican allies like Lindsey Graham. “If you make a policy argument, he's going to win,” the senator said on “Meet the Press.” “Donald Trump, the provocateur, the showman, he might not win this election.”
Policies aside, Kamala Harris will win or lose on excitement levels
Nikki Haley, a nominal Trump supporter, delivered a similar message to Fox's Bret Baier: “You don't win a campaign by talking about the size of the crowd. You don't win by talking about what race Kamala Harris is. You don't win by talking about whether she's stupid. I think the campaign needs to be focused.”
With Joe Biden, the man Trump really wanted to face off against, pushed out of prime time and delivering an impassioned speech largely touting his own accomplishments and attacking The Donald, Trump adopted a mindset shared by many of the occupants of the White House.
If you geniuses are so smart, why did you elect me president?
Republican presidential candidate and former president Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event at Precision Components Group in York, Pennsylvania, Monday, Aug. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum) (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
This was especially true of Trump in 2016, when almost everyone, including Hillary Clinton, was certain he would win. Perhaps that's why she clearly enjoyed mocking him at the Chicago convention, smiling with satisfaction at the slogan “Put him in jail!”, a parody of Trump campaign chants during the campaign that she should be locked up.
When Barack Obama clashed with John McCain during a post-campaign meeting in 2008, Obama felt the need to remind his former rival that he had beaten him in that election.
Trump has expanded his campaign, bringing in his campaign chairman, Corey Lewandowski, and past allies, and is trusting his own instincts.
One of the 45th president's oddest moves was using AI to post photos of women wearing “Swifties for Trump” T-shirts. The women don't actually exist. But this came a week after Taylor Swift-obsessed Trump falsely accused Harris of using AI to artificially draw large crowds at Detroit's airport, an accusation that was quickly disproved by a wide-angle shot of the thousands of people who were there.
Maybe it was just a joke, and perhaps the term also applies to the fake image depicting Trump and Harris as a couple, with Harris touching her bare, pregnant belly.
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Even more concerning is a video Trump posted to Truth Social, which begins with a fake image of Harris holding a sign that reads, “I'm Stupid.” In a parody of the Alanis Morissette song “Ironic,” Trump accuses Biden (there's that name again) of having dementia and says Harris is “pulling the strings to cut her own rope.”
But that's the light part.
“Forge ballots on election day. No matter who votes, the gains will be counted. She's spent her whole life on her knees. That's how you ask to be commander in chief.”
We all know the term “on his knees” has unmistakable sexual connotations: It's a reference to her open relationship with future San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, with whom she dated publicly in the 1990s. (Brown was still technically married but had been separated from his wife for years, and he appointed Kamala to two state committees.)
Trump generally has an instinct for his opponents' weaknesses. Perhaps he thinks that mocking is the best way to deal with women of color. The attack seems to miss the mark, but Trump is right that it was he who got elected; everyone else was staff or bystanders.
Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference at the Trump National Bedminster Clubhouse in Bedminster, New Jersey, on August 15, 2024. In his second press conference in a week, Trump attacked Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris amid Democrats' gains in recent polls in battleground states. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images) (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
The Trump campaign tried yesterday to deny claims that crime has increased under Harris' administration, citing changes in the way the FBI estimates crime statistics in 2021, and arguing that this is an entirely different comparison, a claim backed up by independent news outlets.
But as I wrote yesterday, the election is not going to be largely determined by some weird debate about border statistics and price gouging. If you go to Kamala's homepage, you won't find a list of any policy proposals at all. She may end up regretting it.
Harris has yet to explain why she abandoned the far-left positions she took in 2020 (No private health insurance! No fracking!), but she has to take a stand on the issue at some point, rather than leaving it to unnamed aides.
Instead, she hopes to ride the wave of excitement and take a seat behind the Resolute Desk in what is sure to be a Democratic National Convention all-star lineup. She is running as a happy warrior at 59 against Trump, who at 78 is the oldest man in the race. But her poll numbers will eventually fall back to previous levels and she will have to endure two months of onslaught by Trump and the MAGA world.
Trump's 'Swifties for Trump' post draws backlash on social media
“They want to talk more about President Trump than they want to talk about the problems facing our country because of Kamala Harris' failure,” the Trump campaign said on the first night of the Democratic National Convention.
Monday night mentions:
Trump: 147 times
Border: 8 times
Economics: 27 times
Inflation: 3x
Price: 5x
Crime: 6 times.
Meanwhile, the Harris campaign harshly criticized her opponent's comments at a Pennsylvania rally: “Trump's advisers are desperately trying to get Donald to stick to the script, but he goes on a rant about whether he and J.D. Vance are crazy, yells that the American Dream is dead, and… just goes off the rails about whatever this was about” (about Russian ships docking in New England).
(Joe Raedl/Getty Images)
Let's not forget that Trump is also up against a hostile press corps that is completely obsessed with Kamala Mentum. Many commentators are pushing the case that Trump is a threat to democracy. We haven't seen such biased coverage since the Clinton-Gore bus tour in 1992.
Most journalists have completely ignored Harris', and Tim Waltz's, refusals to be interviewed, as if it's not their job.
A month ago, Biden was scheduled to deliver his acceptance speech in Chicago, only to be forced into an embarrassing delay that ended at 12:30 a.m. Eastern time because of the lame excuse that there was too much applause in the middle of the night. Things change so quickly in politics.
Some media critics have said Trump has become boring, that what was fresh and tough and fun in 2016 now seems stale and cliché. That may be true, but Trump didn't win that year on immigration and crime, he won on the basis of his anti-establishment persona. And that's exactly the charge being leveled at Kamala.
The widespread belief that Trump would win handily, especially after the assassination attempt, has been replaced by a media consensus that Harris is riding a cultural wave that will overwhelm Trump.
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But that's flawed logic. Trump still has an easier path to the magic 270 electoral votes. Despite all the negative information that has befallen him, including his criminal conviction, he remains neck and neck with Harris in battleground states.
And he will eventually find a way to undermine Harris, even if it means tinkering with tactics until something works. That has always been the Trump way, and always will be.
Howard Kurtz is the host of FOX News Channel's MediaBuzz (Sundays 11am-12pm ET). Based in Washington, DC, he joined the network in July 2013 and appears regularly on Bret Baier's Special Report and other shows.
