Former President Trump makes moves to regain national political attention

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

As Vice President Harris rises in polls, Republicans have pushed for more scrutiny of the Democratic nominee. They say she hasn't done a challenging interview in the weeks since she began running, which is true. She hasn't done an interview.

The Republican ticket arguably tried for a contrast in recent days. Former President Trump held an extended news conference while vice presidential nominee JD Vance talked on three TV news shows yesterday. Trump has also held one campaign stop and posted a lot on social media.

So do their words add up to a strategy for the new circumstance in which they find themselves? Republican strategist T.W. Arrighi has been watching all this. He was communications director for Senator Lindsey Graham's reelection campaign back in 2020. Mr. Arrighi, good morning.

T W ARRIGHI: Good morning, Steve. It's great to be with you.

INSKEEP: OK, so it's widely reported that the Trump campaign was caught by surprise a couple weeks ago by - three weeks ago by the change in candidates. Their old message had been Joe Biden is a failure and also very old, out of touch, even senile. Do you perceive the outlines of a new message for this new situation?

ARRIGHI: I do, Steve, and I think that is that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz make up the most radically liberal ticket in recent memory. And you don't really need to dig too deep into Vice President Harris' past for a litany of policy positions she's taken from the time she began to run for president, when she was in the Senate as well and beyond to really draw that outline. And I think so long as Vice President Vance and President Trump stick to calling out those - or, sorry, vice presidential nominee Vance - stick to calling out those policy positions, they'll be all right.

INSKEEP: Well, that's interesting you mention that. I mean, there's an example like fracking where...

ARRIGHI: Yes.

INSKEEP: ...Harris was against fracking when she ran for president the first time a bit more than four years ago, has now changed positions and says she is in favor of fracking. Is that going to be - is that going to make it harder to land a blow there?

ARRIGHI: Oh, well, no, massively 'cause once you say it - you've only said it a couple years ago - it tends to feel like it's still your position. She's tacking to the left quite heavily to appeal the different demographics of the Democratic Party, such as the uncommitted vote, the pro-Palestinian vote. She's going to have to answer for not only that but also her policy positions at the border and elsewhere, and those will play pretty heavily in places like Pennsylvania, which will matter a lot.

INSKEEP: Now, you mentioned that it would be important for former President Trump and JD Vance to focus on those policy differences and see if you can round up more conservative voters. I'm not sure that that describes what the former president has been doing. He's said a lot of attention-grabbing things.

One of his repeated messages in recent days - he's said this repeatedly - was an unfounded idea that President Biden was going to show up and demand the nomination back. I have no idea where that came from. It really makes it sound like he is utterly unprepared to face the candidate he's actually running against now.

ARRIGHI: Yeah, I'm not sure where he was going with that, either, so I won't try to explain that away. But I can tell you that I think that if Kamala Harris and Donald Trump get on a debate stage together, you will definitely see a pretty big difference in policy positions.

Look, there is no issue that Donald Trump has been more adamant about since the first time he ran for president than immigration policy and border policy. Kamala Harris was called by Joe Biden his border czar. There's plenty of material there to work with. There's plenty of economic material to work with. I think when the conversation focuses on the issues, Donald Trump will be able to come up with a good wedge point or two to really show why he would be more fit to be president than Vice President Harris.

INSKEEP: I got to note without making a big debate about it - news accounts called her, at the time, a border czar. The - President Biden didn't, and her job was specifically diplomacy. We don't have to get into that. She was part of the team dealing with border and immigration issues.

ARRIGHI: Yes, but he did say it in the White House.

INSKEEP: I want to...

ARRIGHI: There is a clip of it.

INSKEEP: OK, I want to move on to the vice presidential nominee JD Vance. He, in these interviews over the weekend, was asked about a lot of his past statements. He was on a lot of podcasts in recent years. And he was asked about this comment about childless cat ladies, his phrase. He said, in 2021, that Democrats were run by childless people who were anti-family. And in naming the people who were childless, he named people who had children.

He replied in the - one of the interviews yesterday on CNN that he wants to be pro-family. He claims that's all he really meant, and he told CNN's Dana Bash that he wanted to save parents from things like surprise medical bills. Let's listen to some of their exchange.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

JD VANCE: I've sponsored legislation to try to fix things like that so moms and dads don't get these surprise medical bills. I think it's important for us to be pro-family. That's all that I've ever said. Please.

DANA BASH: Well, if you want to be pro-family, I want to - 'cause you do criticize, as you just did, the Democratic Party for being anti-family.

VANCE: I do.

BASH: You called out Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg in particular. Kamala Harris has two stepchildren. Pete Buttigieg and his husband have adopted twins. Do you recognize them as parents and, more broadly, as being part of families?

VANCE: Well, of course I do, Dana. I mean, you know my life story. I was actually raised...

BASH: Well, I wouldn't say of course.

VANCE: I was raised...

BASH: You called them out by...

VANCE: But Dana, I was raised - one of the...

BASH: ...By name.

VANCE: One of the first people that I gave a hug to after my RNC convention speech was my stepmom.

INSKEEP: There were a lot of exchanges like that yesterday on network after network. How do you think Vance did at cleaning up his past statements, if at all?

ARRIGHI: I think he did pretty well, Steve. Look, JD Vance's life story is a pretty impressive one, and he came from a pretty broken home. There are people there in his family life who did not have children. I didn't particularly like the original line of attack that JD Vance used in that podcast, but I thought he acquitted himself well in the interviews.

I do think that the Republican Party should be more pro-family. I think the country as a whole should be more pro-family. And if that comes in the form of expanded child tax credits, if that comes in the form of helping with stopping surprise medical bills and such, I think that's a good thing. And I think that has bipartisan approval, and we should focus our efforts on making sure that happens.

INSKEEP: Kind of curious how you look at this as a political strategist - Vance has not said about any of these past remarks, you know, I was a little extreme there or, you know, I was just talking on a podcast, didn't really mean that, or I was wrong. Sorry. He didn't say any of that. He said, I'm right about everything, and the Democrats are lying about everything, but he's on tape saying this stuff. Is it a political mistake not to just walk away from your remarks that are drawing such fire?

ARRIGHI: I don't know, Steve. And you're on the radio a lot, too. You tend to - especially if you're in a long-form setting, it's easy to have one thing be taken out of context as a part of a broader discussion. So if you think about...

INSKEEP: Well, there's not a taken out of context here. I mean, he said this stuff.

ARRIGHI: I agree. And I - how I would handle things and how JD Vance would handle things are different 'cause I think he actually acquitted himself well, but I want to give you another example.

INSKEEP: About 10 seconds.

ARRIGHI: When the - OK. When the issue came up about voting - the Democrats want to expand voting age down to 14. He had made a comment that, why don't we flip it around and make parents have their vote? Well, he didn't really mean that parents should have double votes. So I think there's a time and a place for everything. I think Senator Vance did well.

INSKEEP: And there will be a time and a place for more discussion of this. T.W. Arrighi, thanks for your insights, really appreciate it.

ARRIGHI: Thank you for having me, Steve. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.