Democrats needle Trump, seeking to provoke him
Democrats are delighting in needling former President Trump over his insecurities and baiting him into reactions, believing they are taking him off message and helping Vice President Harris’s surging campaign.
The needling, for Trump, is unending.
Former first lady Michelle Obama delivered one of the most memorable lines of the Democratic convention Tuesday night when she suggested Trump might be seeking a “Black job” in running against Harris for the White House.
After Michelle Obama left the stage, former President Obama arrived to bash Trump over his “weird obsession with crowd sizes,” adding a hand gesture that implied he was mocking Trump’s manhood.
Harris was not present Tuesday night, but she needled Trump on her own with her actions. The vice president held a rally in the same Milwaukee arena that hosted the Republican National Convention, a power move meant to show she can draw a crowd.
Democrats argue the mocking commentary and travel stunts are all part of a plan that can help make Harris the first woman elected as president.
“It’s all about getting the excitement back for the party and getting people reengaged,” said one major Democratic bundler. “The best way to get people engaged is to poke fun at him.”
Trump has certainly noticed the barbs and jabs.
“Did you see Barack Hussein Obama last night? He was taking shots at your president. And so was Michelle,” Trump told supporters Wednesday at a North Carolina rally.
“You know, they always say, ‘Sir, please stick to policy, don’t get personal,’” Trump continued. “And yet they’re getting personal all night long, these people. Do I still have to stick to policy?”
Republican strategist Susan Del Percio said that because Trump lives and breathes all-things media, Democrats have found an easy pipeline to undermine him — and they know he’s watching.
“He’s easy to irk,” she said. “These are little digs. They’re not Trump-like attacks. But he can’t take a joke.”
Harris’s entry into the race has invigorated Democrats and led the party to let loose in going after Trump, who has struggled to find a clear line of attack against his new opponent.
The jolt of enthusiasm, exemplified by this week’s convention in Chicago, has helped Harris erase Trump’s lead in the polls. A Decision Desk HQ/The Hill average of national polls shows the vice president leading Trump by 3 percentage points.
While Trump has insisted he’s “entitled” to personal attacks, Republican allies have pleaded with him to stay focused on policy.
“Donald Trump, the provocateur, the showman — may not win this election,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Sunday on NBC. “So, I'm looking for President Trump to show up in the last 80 days to define what he will do for our country to fix broken borders, to lower inflation.”
Seeing an opportunity to keep Trump offtrack, Democrats have leaned into the issue of crowd size to irk Trump, who speaks constantly about television ratings and the number of people who show up to see him speak.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the vice presidential nominee on the Democratic ticket, has repeatedly characterized Trump and his running mate as “weird,” a messaging effort that appears to have bothered the former president enough that he brought it up during remarks in Pennsylvania this week.
Democrats this week aimed to pile on with some of their convention speakers.
Stephanie Grisham, who served as Trump’s White House press secretary for roughly a year, addressed the Democratic gathering Tuesday. Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), another major Trump foil, will speak Thursday.
Other speakers have clearly tried to needle Trump over his insecurities. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) hit Trump over his wealth, telling the crowd, “Take it from an actual billionaire, Trump is rich in only one thing: stupidity.”
“Donald Trump is the most easily triggered presidential candidate in history,” Democratic strategist Tim Hogan said. “Any perceived slight or insult leads him down a rabbit hole of off-message personal attacks that reminds voters of the day-to-day chaos during his presidency. His thin skin, as always, is a liability."
The Trump campaign dismissed the insults as “unfounded personal attacks from washed up Democrats because they don’t have any real solutions for the problems everyday Americans face.”
“This is why Kamala and Democrats will lose in November — they’re more interested in personal grievances than in helping people,” Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement.
But some Democrats have argued there is a strategy to the attacks on Trump beyond merely trying to get under his skin.
Kate Bedingfield, a former senior aide to President Biden, said Wednesday that the speeches from the Obamas in particular were a way of making Trump seem small or weak, undercutting the image of strength and masculinity that the former president has built over his years in politics.
“In some ways I think that what they were doing is quite smart, subtle, by kind of going at some of those strengths that we see Trump has with the electorate,” Bedingfield said on CNN.