Trump tries to wrest attention back
Plus: Sorting through claims about Tim Walz’s military record.
Donald Trump does not seem to know how to run against Kamala Harris.
After spending months honing an effective playbook — maybe too effective — to run against Joe Biden, Trump’s campaign has lost its focus since Harris took her boss’ place on the ticket. While his advisers have tried to push him to brand Harris as a “San Francisco liberal,” his attacks against her have been a discordant (and often racist) hodge-podge, from falsely alleging that she recently “became Black” to repeatedly calling her “Kamabla” for no apparent reason.
In between, he has attacked the popular Republican governor of Georgia and openly struggled with the reality that Biden is no longer his opponent. In Truth Social posts, Trump has complained that the GOP should be “reimbursed for fraud” for the dollars it spent against Biden and spun conspiracy theories about Biden trying to take back the Democratic nomination after it was “Unconstitutionally STOLEN from him” by “Barrack HUSSEIN Obama,” among others.
There’s no real reason Trump should be mentioning Biden publicly anymore — except to tie Harris to the incumbent’s unpopular record — and yet he seems stuck on his old rival, too wrapped up in the injustice of it all to focus on the campaign in front of him. “It’s unfair that I beat him and now I have to beat her, too,” Trump told an ally on the phone last weekend, according to The Washington Post.
In recent days, while Harris has barnstormed the country with her new running mate Tim Walz, Trump has mostly remained off the trail, leaving it to J.D. Vance to bracket Harris across the battleground states. Holed up at Mar-a-Lago, he has “grown increasingly upset” about the state of the race, The Post reported, “complaining relentlessly and asking friends about how his campaign is performing.”
It’s in that context that Trump will burst back into public view today, with a 2 p.m. ET press conference at Mar-a-Lago.
Trump famously hates when other politicians are getting more attention than he is, as Harris has been amid her campaign launch and VP rollout. This will be his attempt to wrest eyeballs back, and to return his campaign to the headlines.
The question is whether he will focus on attacking Harris over the economy, or immigration, or any of her other vulnerabilities — or whether the event will mirror his most recent foray into the spotlight, his disastrous appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists conference.
Regardless of which path he chooses to take, here are two lines of attack you can almost certainly expect to hear from Trump:
#1: Harris’ accessibility: He will be sure to contrast his willingness to hold a press conference with Harris’ refusal to answer questions from reporters since launching her campaign for the presidency. Harris has struggled when engaging with journalists in the past, most famously in her 2021 interview with NBC’s Lester Holt, when she falsely claimed that “we’ve been to the border.” According to The New York Times, Harris avoided agreeing to almost any interviews for “about a year” after the Holt encounter.
On the campaign trail, Harris has plainly improved her abilities in front of a teleprompter — but she has yet to speak in an unscripted setting since Biden left the ticket, holding no interviews, press conferences, or even impromptu Q&As. Many questions linger about Harris’ opinions about Biden’s fitness for office, whether she will distance herself from his record, whether she will distance herself from her record (namely her previous support for left-wing positions like Medicare For All and the Green New Deal); Harris has yet to answer any of them.
Perhaps most strikingly, Biden — who sat for an interview with CBS News yesterday — has now given more interviews since ending his campaign than Harris has since launching hers, a point Trump may seize on today. “Kamala refuses to do interviews because her team realizes she is unable to answer questions, much like Biden was not able to answer questions, but for different reasons,” he wrote on Truth Social this morning.
#2: Walz’s military record: Vance, who has been speaking to the press — holding daily Q&As on the trail — debuted this line of attack yesterday, charging that Walz inflated his military record and ducked service in Iraq.
“When the United State Marine Corps, when the United States of America asked me to go to Iraq to serve my country, I did it,” said Vance, who served as a Marine for four years, including six months in a non-combat role in Iraq. “I did what they asked me to do, and I did it honorably and I’m very proud of that service. When Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq, you know what he did? He dropped out of the Army and allowed his unit to go without him.”
“I’d be ashamed if I was him and I lied about my military service like he did,” Vance added.
There are a number of claims to unpack here. Walz served for 24 years in the National Guard, retiring in May 2005 to run for Congress. Two months later, in July, his artillery unit was deployed to Iraq. Some of his fellow guardsmen have alleged that Walz purposefully timed his retirement to avoid deployment, saying that it was already understood by May that the unit was Iraq-bound — but others say that Walz’s campaign plans were made far in advance. Walz filed to run for Congress in February of that year.
Separately from the questions about his retirement, there is evidence that Walz has inaccurately described his military service. For instance, in a 2018 video posted by the Harris campaign to X on Tuesday, Walz is speaking about gun control when he declares, “We can make sure that those weapons of war that I carried in war is the only place where those weapons are at.” Walz did not serve in combat, as “carried in war” would imply.
Walz’s official bio has also attracted attention for referring to him as “Command Sergeant Major Walz.” Technically, although Walz did achieve that rank, he retired as a Sergeant Major because he did not complete required coursework at the Army academy before retirement. Therefore, it is accurate to say that he served as a Command Sergeant Major (however briefly), but in retirement, he is properly referred to as “Sergeant Major Walz,” since he was reverted back to his previous rank before leaving the Guard.
Finally, Walz has been criticized for referring to himself as “a veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom,” which is the name generally associated with the war in Afghanistan. Walz never served in Afghanistan — but he did deploy to Italy in 2003 in a role supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Therefore, it may be considered misleading to say he is a veteran of the operation, since that carries the connotation of having served in Afghanistan, but it is not outright incorrect.
In the past, Trump has held “press conferences” where he has declined to answer questions — so there is no guarantee that he will take any today. But, if he does, here are a few things you can expect him to be asked about:
Debating Harris: Trump has seemingly backed out of a planned September 10 debate on ABC News, which he had agreed to when Biden was the presumptive nominee, instead offering to debate Harris on Fox. Yesterday, Vance suggested that he — not Trump — should debate Harris, since “she probably doesn’t even know that she’s going to be the Democratic nominee,” continuing the GOP ticket’s fixation with the candidate swap. (Harris was formally certified as the nominee on Tuesday.) If he takes questions, Trump will likely be pressed on whether he will agree to the ABC debate.
Project 2025: Trump has repeatedly claimed that he knows nothing about Project 2025 — the Heritage Foundation policy blueprint for a future Republican administration — and has “no idea who is in charge of it.” But Heritage president Kevin Roberts told The Washington Post yesterday that he did discuss Project 2025 with Trump. “They’re going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will,” Trump said of the Heritage Foundation in a 2022 speech, after a 45-minute plane ride with Roberts. Watch for Trump to be nailed down on his exact connections to the project, which is led by several of his former advisers.
Racism: Will Trump distance himself from his suggestion that Harris is not, in fact, biracial and explain why he continues to call her “Kambala”? Or will he double down, repeating the baseless attacks?
More news to know
A few more notes on the state of the race:
New polls continue to come out showing Harris with a growing lead, including a six-point edge in a Marquette poll released today and a three-point advantage in an NPR/PBS/Marist poll released yesterday.
Meanwhile, since Harris has entered the race — and amid a swirl of negative stories, including one about dumping a dead bear cub in Central Park — Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s support has been cut almost in half. According to RealClearPolitics, Kennedy’s support averaged at 10% about a month ago. Today, it stands at 5.7%.
Notably, what’s left of Kennedy’s support appears to be hurting Trump more than Harris — a change from when Biden was in the race. Per RCP, on Biden’s last day in the race, Trump’s 3.1-point polling edge grew to a 4.2-point edge when Kennedy and other third-party candidates were added in the mix. But, now, it is Harris who does better when third-party options are mentioned in polling: she averages a 0.5-point lead in head-to-head polls with Trump, and a 1.2-point lead in polls that include Kennedy and the other candidates.
In a nod to the transformed race, both the Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball — two of the most respected election forecasters — have made changes to their ratings that favor Harris. Cook moved Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada from “Lean Republican” to “Toss Up,” while Sabato moved Georgia to “Toss Up” and Minnesota and New Hampshire from “Lean Democratic” to “Likely Democratic.” (Sabato already has Georgias and Nevada as tossups.) Essentially, Harris’ entrance into the race (and selection of Walz) has taken Minnesota and New Hampshire off the board for Republicans — and added Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada back on the board for Democrats.
Finally, I want to flag this story from ABC News:
Prosecutors in special counsel David Weiss' office are accusing Hunter Biden of accepting payments from a Romanian businessman who was attempting to “influence U.S. government agencies,” while his father Joe Biden was vice president.
If true, the allegation would mark the closest prosecutors have come to tying President Joe Biden to his son's overseas business endeavors — a matter congressional Republicans have spent years scrutinizing.
The special counsel’s claim, in a court filing Wednesday in the younger Biden’s federal tax case, stems from Hunter Biden's work on behalf of Gabriel Popoviciu, a wealthy Romanian who prosecutors say hired the president’s son for legal work in late 2015. Popoviciu was at the time facing corruption charges in his home country.
The day ahead
All times Eastern
Biden: The president will speak on the phone with Gov. Josh Green (D-HI) and Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Maui wildfires. Later, he will host the Texas Rangers at the White House to celebrate their 2023 World Series championship, travel to Wilmington, Delaware to thank campaign staff, and then to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, where he will spend the weekend at his vacation house.
Harris/Walz: The Democratic ticket will hold a campaign rally in Detroit at 3:10pm. Watch here
Trump/Vance: The GOP presidential nominee will hold a press conference at Mar-a-Lago at 2pm. Watch here
Congress: The House and Senate are on recess.
With regard to military service there is one thing that veterans, and active duty servicemembers, take a harsh view of and it is anyone who served inflating their service. Definitely looking at you Vance!
If you served then say so but be truthful about it, down to the last detail. That matters. This includes both Walz and Vance. Vance acts like he was a hard charging combat vet when he wasn’t. And, as Gabe points out, Walz did reach CSM but keeping that rank requires you go through what was known in my time as CSM Academy. It’s only when you’ve graduated that you are fully a Command Sergeant Major. Walz can say he earned the rank and was in line for the academy which is true but he needs to add that he retired before attending thus making him still a Sergeant Major - an impressive rank to reach for sure but not a full CSM.
It’s similar to when people claim they were Colonels but don’t differentiate between Lt (Lieutenant) Colonel and Colonel. Just like SM and CSM they are two different ranks. Enlisted personnel refer to them as Lite Colonel and Full Bird Colonel. (Of course you don’t call a Lt Colonel “lite” to their face! It’s an enlisted nickname. You say the full word - Lieutenant Colonel - when addressing them. Unless you like doing a lot of pushups or KP.) A Lite Colonel wears an insignia of a cluster of silver oak leaves and a Full Bird Colonel wears the eagle insignia. It is a very big difference within the military. Same with Sergeant Major and Command Sergeant Major.
It takes very little effort to add the small but important details to tell the full truth. Veterans and active duty servicemembers definitely notice.
Good essay. Looks like Trump got his wish though with you opening with Trump. Feels better to start with news or commentary, however brief, on Harris rather have reporting on Trump- which you do well- take the lead.