Latest / THE DAILY BRIEF / Trump campaigns for candidates in Texas, Oklahoma INSTEAD of battlegrounds

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Trump campaigns for candidates in Texas, Oklahoma INSTEAD of battlegrounds · THE DAILY BRIEF

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  Speaker 1: President Trump made a swing through two red states yesterday,
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  Speaker 1: starting with Texas. It's become a battleground. It was his
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  Speaker 1: second visit to the state in less than a month
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  Speaker 1: after holding a midterm convention in Dallas. The president spoke
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  Speaker 1: to a few hundred people at a truck factory.
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  Speaker 2: But here's the thing.
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  Speaker 1: There was no press pool because the White House once
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  Speaker 1: again banned CNN from providing on-the-ground coverage. That means we're
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  Speaker 1: not showing you the footage because there was no pool
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  Speaker 1: to shoot that footage. That move, of course, comes less
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  Speaker 1: than a week after a federal judge blocked the president's
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  Speaker 1: first effort to exclude news outlets, including MSNOW. But while
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  Speaker 1: on the ground in Texas, the president told the crowd
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  Speaker 1: to vote for an attorney general, Ken Paxton, in the
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  Speaker 1: race for that U.S. Senate seat, praising the AG for being, quote,
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  Speaker 1: at my side more than anybody in but also jokingly
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  Speaker 1: calling him a pain in the ass. The president then
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  Speaker 1: headed north to Oklahoma for another rally, where he again
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  Speaker 1: boosted Republican candidates and claimed he would send $ 5, 000 checks
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  Speaker 1: to Americans if and only if his party retains control
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  Speaker 1: of Congress after the midterms. Remember, they've already got it.
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  Speaker 1: I want to bring in MSNOW White House reporter Jake Traylor,
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  Speaker 1: who was on the ground in Texas with the president.
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  Speaker 2: Jake, I think the fact.
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  Speaker 1: That there's no footage should underscore to Americans just how
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  Speaker 1: serious the president's threats of banning the media look when
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  Speaker 1: you actually put them into practice. So that's an important
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  Speaker 1: backdrop here. But when it comes to the content, you
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  Speaker 1: were able to see it there. We talked a little
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  Speaker 1: bit about how he talked about Ken Paxton, especially after Paxton,
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  Speaker 1: apparently in a private fundraising meeting. was talking about how
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  Speaker 1: that Dallas convention was actually a drag on his internal numbers.
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  Speaker 1: Texas shouldn't really be a battleground. And yet here we
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  Speaker 1: are once again. What is the difference Trump might make?
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  Speaker 2: What do you hear from voters? Yeah, I mean, everything
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  Speaker 2: you just said is exactly right here.
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  Speaker 3: The the.
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  Speaker 2: Dynamics that we were seeing play out are just so interesting.
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  Speaker 3: But first, it's worth noting the president made this promise
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  Speaker 3: a couple weeks ago that he would visit the 35
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  Speaker 3: most competitive races across the country. Think about Ohio and
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  Speaker 3: Iowa and Maine and Pennsylvania. And then the president begins
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  Speaker 3: his campaign blitz in Texas and Oklahoma and then today
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  Speaker 3: in Alabama. And I talked to one White House official
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  Speaker 3: for this reporting that we did in the story that
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  Speaker 3: basically said there's an intentionality to sort of keep the
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  Speaker 3: president away from some of these swing districts.
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  Speaker 2: Where moderate voters who are.
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  Speaker 3: Really unenthused with President Trump right now are making any
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  Speaker 3: of the key decisions. We saw the president, obviously, in
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  Speaker 3: Texas and Oklahoma yesterday. The message that is coming through
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  Speaker 3: that's sort of new for him right now is in
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  Speaker 3: a bit of a way owning up that he has
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  Speaker 3: a PR issue. He said multiple times in the speech
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  Speaker 3: in Texas that he is doing all the right things,
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  Speaker 3: but he has a PR problem, essentially. Which, one, by
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  Speaker 3: the way, he's not had a press secretary for over
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  Speaker 3: a month, and they've not rushed to fill that role
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  Speaker 3: because he keeps saying over and over again he is
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  Speaker 3: his own best messenger.
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  Speaker 2: So kind of a bit of shooting himself in the
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  Speaker 2: foot there.
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  Speaker 3: But when we talked to voters on the ground yesterday,
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  Speaker 3: me and my colleagues who are in The thing that
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  Speaker 3: we found overwhelmingly was just that there is this consistent,
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  Speaker 3: I know we've talked a lot about this, but there's
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  Speaker 3: this enthusiasm gap right now. People, when we asked, you know,
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  Speaker 3: Republicans that had voted for Trump three times, Republicans that
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  Speaker 3: had been to multiple Trump rallies before, are you going
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  Speaker 3: to get out and support Paxton? There was a lot
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  Speaker 3: of just maybe, I don't know, we'll see. And we
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  Speaker 3: know what that translates to is people don't actually show
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  Speaker 3: up to the polls and vote.
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  Speaker 2: That's the most important thing in these cases.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was also struck by some Fox News polling
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  Speaker 1: that showed 20 percent of voters who backed John Cornyn,
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  Speaker 1: the Republican senator in the primary, actually say that they're
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  Speaker 1: going to support Tallarico. And so that's another dynamic specific
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  Speaker 1: to Texas, but one that we're watching quite closely. When
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  Speaker 1: you talk, though, about the messaging piece of it, the
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  Speaker 1: way the president is complaining, it dovetails with what Republican
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  Speaker 1: strategist Karl Rove is now criticizing the president for, specifically
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  Speaker 1: on messaging ahead of the midterms. He was speaking on
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  Speaker 1: Brian Kilmeade's radio show on Wednesday, and Rove said Republicans
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  Speaker 1: have failed to consistently communicate what they support and even
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  Speaker 1: argued the president and his team lack discipline.
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  Speaker 2: Watch. The next four and a half weeks have got
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  Speaker 2: to be focused.
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  Speaker 4: Team Trump needs to have a message of the day
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  Speaker 4: that it pushes every day and stops as much of
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  Speaker 4: this extraneous stuff.
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  Speaker 2: We don't need to.
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  Speaker 4: Hear about the president saying, I'm going to tear down
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  Speaker 4: the Kennedy Center if I don't get recognition.
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  Speaker 2: We don't want to hear about the idea.
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  Speaker 4: I got the great triumphal march arch and I've agreed
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  Speaker 4: that we're going to have drones and snipers and a
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  Speaker 4: whole bunch of sniper ammunition. But who are those snipers
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  Speaker 4: going to shoot people driving down the parkway? I mean,
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  Speaker 4: we need to stay focused. And this starts at the
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  Speaker 4: White House and it starts with the president's political operation.
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  Speaker 2: And they've got plenty of good material. I mean, we
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  Speaker 2: talked about two of them here. But, you know, they
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  Speaker 2: got to get focused.
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  Speaker 1: But it's also, Jake, I think a salient point of criticism,
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  Speaker 1: but also one that has been true for over the
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  Speaker 1: last 10 years. Trump has never been a disciplined messenger.
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  Speaker 1: Republicans really bake that in. And so is this just
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  Speaker 1: a convenient excuse for the guy who likes to say
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  Speaker 1: he's the best messenger for the party? He's assuming that
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  Speaker 1: role going to all of these states. And yet his
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  Speaker 1: message and his actions are the very thing that is
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  Speaker 1: leaving him out of some of those swing districts that
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  Speaker 1: you were talking about and reporting in your story.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, Ali, there's a thing that I've heard
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  Speaker 3: a lot from Trump aides, from top GOP operatives, which
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  Speaker 3: is that for a long time or especially in the moment,
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  Speaker 3: if the economy is doing OK or if affordability or
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  Speaker 3: gas prices or there's not a war in Iran or
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  Speaker 3: there's not an international tariff war. If things are doing
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  Speaker 3: OK in the country, there is it is from Trump
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  Speaker 3: aides and allies. There is a level of charisma that
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  Speaker 3: the president has typically that kind of surpasses things.
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  Speaker 2: People give a lot.
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  Speaker 3: To him because they go, well, you know, he's not
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  Speaker 3: the nicest this, but we like this about him. Those
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  Speaker 3: things can be true when the president isn't at his
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  Speaker 3: lowest approval that we've seen in his entire presidency, when
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  Speaker 3: gas prices aren't through the roof, when affordability isn't an
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  Speaker 3: issue for the average American, when there's not an international
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  Speaker 3: trade war going on right now. There's a lot of
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  Speaker 3: things that the president may be typically has sort of
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  Speaker 3: gotten away with in the past 10 years that at
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  Speaker 3: the end of the day, voters right now, what matters?
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  Speaker 3: The pocketbook, how they feel about can they afford groceries
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  Speaker 3: or not? And they feel as though they can't right now.
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  Speaker 3: And so a lot of the things that maybe even,
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  Speaker 3: you know, we saw the story from Politico about the
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  Speaker 3: Front Row Joes the other day, some of them turning
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  Speaker 3: on the president. There are these moments where It seems
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  Speaker 3: as though if the economy and the things that people
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  Speaker 3: really care about are not doing well, the president can't
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  Speaker 3: get off scot-free here. In that interview, I think what
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  Speaker 3: was really notable is they said focus. The president has
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  Speaker 3: not been focused. That's not how I would characterize his
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  Speaker 3: speech yesterday in Texas or in Oklahoma and this continued
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  Speaker 3: conversation about focus. a PR problem with the White House
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  Speaker 3: right now that comes from top down.
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  Speaker 2: There's not this kind of centered focus.
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  Speaker 3: One Trump fundraiser said to my colleague, Surin, in the
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  Speaker 3: story we did, that the problem Trump has right now
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  Speaker 3: is basically he has to convince people that things are
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  Speaker 3: okay when it comes to gas prices, affordability, the war
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  Speaker 3: in Iran. These are Trump-made issues. And the voters that
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  Speaker 3: we talk to and have been speaking with here in Texas,
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  Speaker 3: they agree and understand that sentiment. They blame the president
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  Speaker 3: as well.
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  Speaker 1: I think it's a fascinating dynamic. And as much as
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  Speaker 1: we talk about how the headwinds are really difficult for
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  Speaker 1: Republicans right now, do you talk to aides and allies
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  Speaker 1: who think that over the course of the next 30
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  Speaker 1: some odd days, there is an opportunity to turn it around?
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  Speaker 1: Or are they just bracing for the impact of their
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  Speaker 1: own actions at this point?
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  Speaker 3: It's a good question. It does seem like mitigating or
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  Speaker 3: managing a loss, essentially. But what also is interesting is
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  Speaker 3: the answer that I've at least heard from the Trump
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  Speaker 3: allies and the folks inside the White House that I've
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  Speaker 3: spoken to, the answer to mitigating some of the loss is,
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  Speaker 3: it hasn't been necessarily straight from President Trump. It's been
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  Speaker 3: putting maybe key cabinet officials in certain areas, maybe a
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  Speaker 3: Vice President Vance, maybe a Rubio or others, putting some
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  Speaker 3: of those individuals into some of those more stickier races
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  Speaker 3: to try and mend some of the already lost that
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  Speaker 3: the Republicans are seeing in some of these tight races.
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  Speaker 3: So it's been really notable. I've actually found that, yes,
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  Speaker 3: a question to see folks talk about what we're going
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  Speaker 3: to send so-and-so here, so-and-so here.
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  Speaker 2: And none of those names so far have been Donald Trump.
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  Speaker 1: Even as this White House works to make it so
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  Speaker 1: that voters act like the president's name is on the ballot.
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  Speaker 1: It's almost like Republicans who were concerned about that strategy
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  Speaker 1: had reason to be. MSNOW White House reporter Jake Traylor.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you, as always. Great work on the campaign trail.
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  Speaker 2: Thanks. Thanks.