On Monday evening, former President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, was on Fox Business discussing the state of the Trump campaign with former Trump adviser Larry Kudlow.
You’d think both Trump allies would be praising their favorite candidate. However, it’s some tough love.
Conway was accused of criticizing Trump’s attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris, which focused on everything from intelligence to race. “The winning formula for President Trump is very clear,” said the first lady who ran the winning presidential campaign. “It’s less insulting, more insightful, and contrasts the policy.”
Kudlow agreed. “Again,” he said, “I think personal insults to him are not a good idea, not a good idea. It’s a distraction, it’s unnecessary, it’s not the message.”
Conway offered some optimism for the upcoming interview between Trump and X owner Elon Musk, suggesting it would be a good opportunity for Trump to present “policy contrasts.”
Blessed is his heart.
The glitch-ridden Trump/Musk live broadcast, in which Trump waxed poetic about Harris’ alleged resemblance to his wife Melania, among other nonsensical things, was not the contrast Conway wanted.
Instead, it’s a reality-proof, grievance-riddled, sloppy interview between two thin-skinned billionaires who are thrilled to learn that they hate the same people. Needless to say, the policy is light.
Since President Biden dropped the Democratic ticket, and Harris stepped forward, Trump’s 2.0 campaign has been plagued by unforced errors, poor messaging, attempts to define him, lame name-calling, and an embarrassing contrast in enthusiasm and momentum.
He tried, for some inexplicable reason, to claim her race, suggesting that she had recently “become black.”
He tried to insult her competence and intelligence.
He’s weirdly accusing them of manipulating crowd size with AI – and we all know how important crowd size is to him.
And on Tuesday, the official Trump campaign account on X posted a racist meme about migrants.
As for his running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, they are trying to attack the service record. She’s called “Team Tampon,” because of her state’s law that requires public schools to provide free menstrual products to students. Trump has tried to call him “Friend Walz.”
If recent polls are any indication, none of that has been able to boost Trump’s campaign, especially in key swing states, where Harris continues to get better and better news.
Like the latest Cook Report, which has Harris up or tied with Trump in all but one swing state.
Or a recent New York Times/Siena College poll, showing Harris tightening the margin with one of Trump’s core constituencies — white working-class voters in swing states.
But despite Conway’s nudges, as well as mounting criticism from other Republicans like the former Governor of South Carolina Nikki Haley, and even Peter “Pimp Ladies” Navarro, Trump seems determined to avoid real privacy objections.
What’s surprising — and perhaps infuriating for many Republicans up for re-election in down-ballot races — is that there are so many policy areas to work on.
Trump and Vance have tried to put Harris on the border migrant crisis, but have so far been unsuccessful in forcing him to answer for his role in the Biden administration.
He has damaged the economy, with Trump even predicting a coming depression, but no visible effect on his numbers.
But he overlooked some low-hanging fruit when it came to Walz, a missed opportunity to put the new Dem ticket on the defensive.
First, abortion. While Republicans are rightly painted as extremists on women’s reproductive rights — representing only a minority of voters who want abortion outlawed, Minnesota’s legislation also falls outside the mainstream.
Minnesota’s new law does not include specific restrictions on abortion at any stage of pregnancy. A majority of voters believe that abortion should be legal, with some restrictions, including a certain number of weeks. The majority of abortion rights advocates say how long a woman is pregnant should be important in determining legality, and that support for legal abortions is reduced by the stage of pregnancy.
Minnesota does not require parental consent for minors – national polls show overwhelming support for parental consent.
Minnesota’s progressive trans law, creating the state a “trans sanctuary,” where children can receive gender-affirming interventions, and courts can have “temporary emergency jurisdiction” in custody disputes that cross state lines if children cannot affirm their gender . care, not popular nationally. A majority of voters oppose gender-affirming treatment for minors, as well as trans women participating in sports against biological girls.
In taxes – remember taxes? Republicans used to care about him. many. Minnesota has the highest corporate tax rate in the US! It also has the sixth highest rate of individual income tax. It sounds like this might be important to people.
How about a meme or a riff on any of these things? Do Walz and Harris want to make America more like Minnesota? It’s a fair question that doesn’t need to be answered because Trump prefers to offer dumb epithets rather than drill policy contrasts.
Whether he just doesn’t care about the policy, or whether he’s too old and tired to get substantive and specific, his campaign suffers because he refuses to take it — and the voters — seriously.
And they responded well.
SE Cupp is the host of “SE Cupp Unfiltered” on CNN.
