GOP pleads with Trump to control impulses, focus on policy
by Brett Samuels - 08/12/24 1:29 PM ET
Republicans are pleading with former President Trump to focus on policy after he has spent the first few weeks against Vice President Harris’s surging campaign indulging what they see as his worst impulses.
Since Harris replaced President Biden as the Democratic nominee in late July, Trump has exasperated some of his allies with a lack of discipline in his campaign messaging.
In that time, he has attacked Harris over her biracial heritage, blasted the popular Republican governor of Georgia during an Atlanta rally, touted the size of the crowd on Jan. 6 in comparison to the audience from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, and falsely claimed Harris’s huge rally crowds were fabricated.
Republicans have insisted they can win back the White House in November if the election is about issues like immigration and the economy, but they fear Trump has been acting as his own worst enemy.
“The issues, the top issues of voters are squarely in his favor,” said one former Trump White House official.
“Can they stay focused on that?” the official continued. “In these final 90 days, that’s going to be the key. Because I think when it comes to the issues that matter — immigration, the economy, etc. — are hands down the biggest issues and those favor Trump.”
Trump has sporadically attacked Harris on immigration, labeling her the “border czar” over her work addressing the root causes of migration.
He’s also highlighted some of her proposals during her 2020 presidential bid, including when she said she would support a ban on fracking and her past support for a single-payer health care system. Harris’s campaign has said she no longer supports those ideas.
But those attacks have been overshadowed by Trump’s inability to stay on message. Instead, he has set off a series of negative news cycles while Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), barnstormed battleground states.
“It’s not that he’s not talking about the economy, it’s not that he’s not talking about the border. It’s that he’s talking about all these other crazy things as well that distract you,” said Brendan Buck, a former aide to former Speakers Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and John Boehner (R-Ohio), on MSNBC.
Trump in an interview at the National Association of Black Journalists convention earlier this month questioned Harris’s biracial heritage, falsely claiming the vice president “happened to turn Black” in recent years.
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https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4824100-trump-republicans-campaign-issues/
