Axios (“Trump’s Capitol Hill allies fume at his unfocused candidacy“):
Former President Trump’s apparent inability to stay on message is grating on some of his Republican allies on Capitol Hill, who worry the 2024 election is slipping away from their party.
Why it matters: Republican lawmakers fear that an unfocused campaign could doom their chances of winning control of Congress — a concern voiced by the leader of the House GOP’s campaign arm in a call with colleagues on Thursday evening. “Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are the most left-wing ticket in history,” National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Richard Hudson (R-N.C.) said on the call, according to a source familiar with his comments. “If we aren’t disciplined in repeating that message — we could lose this country.”
What we’re hearing: “I hear a great deal of frustration from supporters,” one House Republican told Axios of Trump’s campaign rhetoric, speaking on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly about their party’s presidential nominee. We are all hoping that he will focus more,” added the lawmaker, who, like most other Republicans in Congress, has publicly endorsed Trump. Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), a Trump endorser who is fighting to hold onto a district President Biden won in 2020, said Harris’ progressive Senate voting record “should be the message every day.” Another House Republican told Axios of Trump’s current dark spot: “If he doesn’t have message discipline, and he doesn’t focus on the sh*t we need to be focused on right now, it’s not going to pass.”
Salon (“‘It’s like he’s choosing to lose’: Trump allies fear he is self-destructing over Kamala Harris surge“):
One month ago, former President Donald Trump seemed poised to retake the White House from an ailing President Joe Biden. Now that he’s falling behind Vice President Kamala Harris, people close to Trump’s campaign are complaining to Vanity Fair that the GOP nominee is only making matters worse. “It’s like he’s choosing to lose,” one of them vented.
The first obvious signs of the unraveling came in late July, as Harris’ entry into the race seemed to re-awaken Trump’s deep-seated impulse to attack rivals based on their identity. At a July 31 conference for Black journalists, Trump said that Harris, who is mixed-race, changed her identity from Indian to Black for political gain, an attack line he continues to use on the campaign trail. At a rally in Georgia days later, Trump spent 10 minutes ranting about Brian Kemp, the state’s popular Republican governor, for being insufficiently loyal during his attempt to overturn the 2020 election. “Little Brian, little Brian Kemp. Bad guy,” he taunted.
On Truth Social, Trump has been posting far-fetched conspiracy theories, including a prediction that Biden will crash the Democratic National Convention to wrest back the nomination and disproven claims that Democrats are creating AI images of Harris’ packed rallies. “It’s nuts,” one Trump confidante told Vanity Fair.
[…]
Trump’s allies fear that Harris’ momentum has thrown their candidate into a panicked fury, and are urging him to focus on the policy debate. “I do think it’s counterproductive to call her stupid,” longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone told Vanity Fair, referring to one of several epithets that Trump has lobbed against Harris alongside nicknames like “Laffin Kamala” and “Kambala.” Trump is reportedly unmoved, telling his circle: “I know what I’m doing.”
Let’s stipulate that he’s gotten a bit worse since 2020 and has not reacted well to the switcharoo atop the Democratic ticket. But Trump has been a rambling, incoherent, angry guy on the stump since the moment he came down that escalator in 2015. To paraphrase Denny Green, he is what we thought he was. Why are these guys surprised?
Granting that the Republican primary electorate chose Trump in competitive primaries in 2016 and 2024, it’s not like these leaders made a concerted effort to point out the obvious after the 2020 debacle. That they’re stuck with a losing candidate is largely their own damned fault.
