Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump speaks at a press conference at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, on August 8, 2024.
Joe Reddell | Getty Images
Former President Donald Trump is facing a wave of calls from Republican supporters to focus his political attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris on policy criticism and tone down his personal attacks and conspiracy theories.
“The way forward is to focus on policy,” said former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. “I think those three words are a path to success for the Republican Party: focus on policy.” NPR Tuesday.
“I think Donald Trump has a good case on all of these fronts, and I think he and the Republicans will get good results by focusing on policy contrasts,” Ramaswamy said. He endorsed Trump after abandoning his bid for the White House earlier this year.
“President Trump’s winning formula is very clear: fewer insults, more insight and policy contrast,” former Trump White House official Kellyanne Conway said in an interview with Fox News on Monday.
Conway, who ran Trump’s winning 2016 campaign, appeared with Trump White House alumnus Larry Kudlow, who also had some advice for Trump: “Don’t walk away, don’t use all kinds of Call her stupid by name, keep the message the same.
Such pleas from Trump loyalists have resonated in Republican circles in recent days as the party grapples with the new dynamics of the presidential race against Harris, three weeks after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race.
As Trump tried to turn the tables, his remarks against Harris often turned into attacks. These included making false statements about her racial identity, insulting her intelligence and commenting on her appearance. He also promoted false conspiracy theories about Harris’ large rally crowds.
“When Trump attacks Harris as a person rather than as a policy, Harris’ support among swing voters rises, especially among women. It’s just a fact of life,” former Trump White House aide Peter Navarro told The Conservatives Said on the Pie War Room podcast.
Navarro, a loyal Trump ally and former aide, recently served four months in federal prison for defying a congressional subpoena in the investigation into the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.
“You have to make this race not about personality. Stop questioning the size of her base and start questioning where she stands,” said former Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said in an interview with Fox News earlier Monday.
The Trump campaign rejected the idea that the former president did not pay enough attention to policy attacks.
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement to CNBC: “Yesterday, President Trump had a record-breaking conversation on X Spaces for more than two hours about Kamala Harris. The case was prosecuted for more than two hours.
“He talked about how weak, failed and dangerously liberal the (Harris)-Walz vote was, the most radical vote in American history. In every speech, President Trump spoke through his America First” agenda and contrasts to illustrate his bold vision for the country. This comes with (Harris’s) dismal record of soaring inflation, runaway borders and surges in crime in American communities,” he added.
Focusing on Harris’ positions is difficult, in part because she has yet to define them. Harris has yet to release a formal policy platform, but she said over the weekend that her campaign plans to release one in the coming days.
Still, Harris’ candidacy has sparked a surge of enthusiasm among Democrats, marked by record donations, significant polling gains and arena-sized rally crowds.
Trump has long focused on crowd sizes, both his own and those of his opponents, as a measure of political momentum.
Harris’s campaign said each of her five rallies last week drew more than 12,000 people. This is a rare feat in modern American politics.
On Sunday, Trump falsely accused Harris of using artificial intelligence technology to take photos of supporters around her air force two A rally was held in Michigan last week. News media quickly confirmed the authenticity of the crowd through live video footage and dozens of photos.
Earlier this week, Trump also claimed that he attracted “10 times, 20 times, 30 times the audience” as Harris.
During the more than hour-long news conference, Trump falsely attributed Harris’ rise in polls to her gender and again questioned her racial identity.
The comments were not welcomed by Gerard Baker, the Wall Street Journal’s influential contributing editor and a staunch conservative who has supported Trump in the past.
“By my calculations, about a third of Mr. Trump’s comments fall into one of three categories: false, insensitive or crazy,” Baker wrote in a column on Monday.
At the same time, Trump has given no indication that he plans to change strategy.
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