The News
Ever since Kamala Harris took Joe Biden’s place at the top of the ticket, Donald Trump has seemingly struggled to focus his attack lines. There’s the typical hits his campaign seems to favor — immigration, inflation, “dangerously liberal” — and then there’s the Trumpier personal ones he adds that touch on her race, gender, and intelligence and take over news cycles.
A number of Republicans have publicly and privately worried Trump’s freelancing has undermined the campaign’s efforts to define Harris early on. In that respect, Monday night’s lengthy conversation on X with Elon Musk could not have come at a better time, with despondent Republicans breathing a collective (but tentative) sigh of relief after the two-plus hour discussion between two combustible figures failed to devolve into conspiracy theories about crowd sizes or accusations about Harris’ ethnic background.
“I thought he did very well by focusing on policy and demonstrating he was able to have a conversation at a level that seems almost impossible to imagine or expect of Kamala Harris,” Vivek Ramaswamy, who has been pushing publicly for Republicans to hone in on Harris’ policy record, told Semafor. “If her proponents disagree, then they should urge her to sit down for more long-form interviews herself.”
It’s the latest beat in a familiar story: Republicans hoping that a chastened Trump will return to the disciplined message that so many in the party believe are key to beating the vice president.
Shelby’s view
Baby steps. The X interview was an unusual event with especially softball questions for a specific audience. That said, there’s a reason Republicans are fist pumping over it: They’re likely hoping Trump will see a positive response and take it as encouragement to pivot away from more distracting topics.
Their reaction comes after weeks of growing pressure, both internally from donors and allies and externally through public media hits, for Trump to abandon these less savory (and less helpful) comments. Kevin McCarthy, via Fox News’ America’s Newsroom, urged Trump just days ago to “stop questioning the size of her crowds” and instead focus on Harris’ positions. Kellyanne Conway told Fox Business that Trump’s “winning formula” includes “fewer insults” and more “policy contrast.”
“When Trump attacks Harris personally rather than on policy, Harris’s support among swing voters rises, particularly among women,” Peter Navarro said on War Room, adding that back in 2016 Trump was able to create “a targeted and disciplined message” that resulted in success in key states.
But how does Trump respond during a more formal, adversarial interview? Or a friendly one that eggs him on more than Musk did this time? And what about when he’s standing next to Harris on a debate stage next month, a setting that sometimes brings out the worst in him?
Republicans know the odds aren’t great Trump will last 83 days in a suddenly tight race without returning to his usual self on a regular basis. But they’ve also known that for a long time: Trump’s reputation for going off-script is so established that allies sometimes treat it as a given, turning the topic instead to how best to navigate around it.
One former Trump campaign advisor worried to Semafor that, based on past experience, they are not convinced that “Trump is willing to adjust.” This person suggested that elevating “fans and surrogates” out into the public eye constantly fighting for Trump could be more beneficial, noting that those who work with the former president learn quickly that you “have to work around his comments.”
While the Trump campaign says Trump will be ramping up his appearances in the coming days and weeks — this week, for example, he’s heading to North Carolina and Pennsylvania — they do seem to be relying more on alternative messengers to get out the policy attacks. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, has been crisscrossing the country and hitting up the Sunday shows while staying more focused on core messages that the official campaign has hoped to convey.
The campaign also has other ways to make its talking points heard without a filter. Trump’s return to X presented one possibility: His famed @realdonaldtrump account spent its first day tweeting out campaign videos and more carefully crafted statements than some of his wilder personally-authored posts. While his own Truth Social account was relatively more on-message yesterday, it also included a video in which a Black supporter in a MAGA hat accused Harris of “stealing a Black woman’s identity, claiming to be Black when you ain’t really Black.”
Room for Disagreement
One person close to the campaign told Semafor that Trump is still finding his footing after the assassination attempt, and has been using that time to watch (and perhaps take lessons from) how Vance’s more “linear” strategy is received. The trend, they argued, is moving in the right direction since his explosive National Association of Black Journalists event.
“It takes some time to calm down after you had a bullet in your head,” this person argued.
A Trump campaign advisor, meanwhile, said that Trump won’t be stepping back from the spotlight, telling Semafor that both he and Vance will be “flooding the zone” — and that Trump continues to reference their main topics: The economy, crime, and the border.
“He’s hitting the keynote on those three issues, and there’s a clear contrast [between his] record versus her record and the administration. He’ll continue to contrast that,” the advisor said.
The View From Democrats
Kamala Harris’ campaign seems to want Trump out there talking as much as possible, viewing his off-the-cuff remarks and sometimes rambling statements as beneficial in pulling out new attack lines. The United Automobile Workers’ X account highlighted one such statement from Trump on Monday, in which he lauded firing workers who go on strike.
After his conversation on X, Harris-Walz spokesperson Joseph Costello added that Trump’s “extremism and dangerous Project 2025 agenda is a feature not a glitch,” and argued it “was on full display” during the event.
Notable
- Trump’s campaign has been showing him the negative press resulting from his attacks on Harris’ racial identity in an effort to get him to shift his messaging, NBC News reported.
- The Trump campaign has dealt with an off-message Donald Trump before: When they first launched back in 2022, the former president was heading off numerous scandals as outsiders wondered when the campaign planned to host actual rallies, Semafor reported at the time.