How messaging about Trump is landing with voters

Look, the attacks on Trump were direct.

They were not demure at all.

They went, no, they went right at it.

But the normie quality is Thursday night, Adam Kinzinger, a Republican coming out and saying, hey, I met these Democrats, my fellow Republicans, they're normal, they're just like you and me, veteran after veteran after veteran.

Kamala Harris talking very tough about America's adversaries, talking about the lethality of American armed forces, not just sad stories about veterans, right, which are important and, but are the traditional comfort area for.

But this is hard-hitting, USA, USA, which is not a chant that you would think, as you know, you would hear.

So, like I'm wondering if you can speak to the question of whether that would matter for the Nikki Haley voters that -- MARK LEIBOVICH: Yes, I think it would.

Because I think you see a -- not just so much a piecing together.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: You say that with such urgency.

MARK LEIBOVICH: No.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: As a Nikki Haley voter.

ALI VITALI: We spent a lot of time out there together, you and I.

MARK LEIBOVICH: I will say this.

We will - - I mean, there is a coalition that, first of all, there's a reassembling of a coalition of black and brown voters, younger voters that Joe Biden was having real trouble with.

You also have -- I mean, we haven't even mentioned AOC.

We've only mentioned Kinzinger once, Jeff just mentioned it here.

But, I mean, yes, there is actually quite a bit of like sort of centrist Republican energy or potential growth there.

Where is the Trump growth strategy?

I mean, yes, the base is energized, but is that base tired?

And does RFK's endorsement count as a growth strategy?

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Susan, where is the growth?

Is there growth?

SUSAN PAGE: For Trump?

No.

I think we know that Trump has a ceiling, as you mentioned.

And the question is can you put together a coalition that's bigger than that.

And that's her task.

I thought it was interesting that her speech last night was directed not at the people in the hall.

It was not a speech designed to get them all ginned up, although they were just on their own.

It was designed for people watching in the watching T.V.

at home, or on social media, who are not avid Democrats, who are thinking about, can she address questions about the border that's it's been raised, can she address questions about inflation, can I see her as a credible commander-in-chief.

And that's why I think you saw so many military people up there on this convention.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: So, watch this -- this is one excerpt from her speech, where she's going at something, which is obviously an important issue, the constitutional challenge posed by post-January 6th Donald Trump.

But I always wonder if -- compared to inflation and other issues, if this matters.

Listen to this.

I want to hear your reaction.

HARRIS: In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man.

But the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.

Consider the power he will have, especially after the United States Supreme Court just ruled that he would be immune from criminal prosecution.

Just imagine, Donald Trump with no guardrails.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: The question is, does this discourse matter to pocketbook voters?

EUGENE DANIELS: I think it does.

And the reason is because the way that she is describing Donald Trump is as not the scary, you know, democracy-shaking person who's going to destroy all the things as Joe Biden did, but as someone who's unserious, right, and that if you put him in there, it's going to be bad.

She didn't talk about it in terms of democracy.

She's framed this election as a question of freedom, which is completely different than I think for voters, black and brown voters, young voters, poor voters.

The idea of being free to do what they want is something that hits stronger than like protecting the world from Donald Trump because he's a danger to democracy in the way that Joe Biden was doing it.

MARK LEIBOVICH: Yes.

I mean, I would agree with that.

I mean, I also think that, I mean, the unserious word I think was very effective.

It was understated.

It was dismissive at the same time.

And then she kind of juxtaposed that with the catastrophic consequences of it.

I mean, that was a very plain spoken.

And as I was sitting in the hall, I mean, it was deathly quiet in that moment.

And I also I wanted for you to use the word catastrophic rather than very dangerous.

But that's just me as an editor.

No, but I -- thank you.

No, I actually thought that was her best moment.

And in the hall, I mean, everyone was like, that's a homerun.

I thought in the hall it felt more like a double, maybe.

But when I saw it digested on video and in clips and so forth, it certainly seemed elevated.

And that seemed to be where people clung to, which I thought was very effective.

SUSAN PAGE: And so effective in getting under Trump's skin.

MARK LEIBOVICH: Yes.

SUSAN PAGE: I mean, you saw that from a flood of tweets that he posted during the speech, including things like, where's Hunter?

Well, you know, Hunter may be in Santa Barbara vacationing with Joe Biden, who was almost unmentioned among convention delegates once he had left the hall.

Trump, I think, is still struggling to figure out how to respond to this very sly attack that doesn't make him the risk to democracy, it makes him -- mocks him as a kind of comical figure.

ALI VITALI: Can I also just add that word, freedom, you know where it started being successful?

In the early referendums on abortion and reproductive access.

Democrats found success in red states because they were able to reclaim that word and speak to the people who, party aside, say, hey, I just want to do what I want to do.

I don't want the government involved.

That transcends partisanship, and we've seen it.

I keep thinking back to covering an Ohio ballot measure in the dog days of August, in an off-year that got put on the ballot mere weeks beforehand, and millions of people turned out for a race that was about abortion, but didn't have that word on the ballot.

And it, to me, spoke volumes about where we're going in this first post-Roe presidential -- SUSAN PAGE: Mind your own damn business.

That is the essence of -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: I've got to ask about talking about things that could help Donald Trump's campaign, which is a little bit sputtering, everybody agrees.

RFK Jr. endorsement, does it matter?

SUSAN PAGE: A little bit.

You know, I think it's helped.

But I don't think it's a big deal because his support doesn't all go to Trump.

But I think, you know, if we're going to have a very close election, which are the only elections we seem to have anymore, even at 1 percent support and in a swing state can tip it.

EUGENE DANIELS: I think, yes, I agree, okay.

He doesn't have the kind of gravitas of if I go vote for this person, everyone's going to go do that, right?

But the slimmest margins matter.

I think more importantly, not RFK, it's how the economy's going to continue to do, whether or not she has a mistake that looks like something in 2019 or in that first year of the vice presidency.

There are other shoes that Democrats are scared that could drop, and a lot of that is out of her hands.

MARK LEIBOVICH: I would -- yes, I mean, certainly, it could be an -- I mean, we don't really know what the effect is.

But it also though it does sort of fit into the Democratic framing of they're weird.

I mean, if you want to like underscore the other guys are weird strategy, I mean, adding, yes, the bear cub, the ear worm -- no, the brain worm, whatever, I mean, that's going to -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: It was a bear and a brain worm.

MARK LEIBOVICH: Whatever it is -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: It helps in stories, yes.

MARK LEIBOVICH: It feels kind of weird.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes.

MARK LEIBOVICH: Anyway, but I think that helps in that one.

ALI VITALI: It's one less problem, right?

It's one less problem, because you look at the RFK campaign -- I think it is, If you look at the RFK campaign, and I think it was clear to many of us that he would have pulled some of the votes.

And when you're playing a game of tricky margins, you don't want to leave that to chance.

So, okay, it's one less question mark.

MARK LEIBOVICH: Well, unless it tips the entire election.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

I mean, Jill Stein -- don't forget Jill Stein.

MARK LEIBOVICH: Jill Stein, Ralph Nader, I mean, there's a lot of -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: there are things that can happen.

I mean, if you were Trump, would you be happy about this?

Would you be happy in a kind of -- ALI VITALI: I think it's one less question.

MARK LEIBOVICH: Yes, absolutely.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes.

I mean, I get you think it'd make a meaningful difference.

ALI VITALI: Pen versus pencil.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: I want to ask a -- well, it's sort of a pen and pencil question that I'm about to ask you.

It's a good transition, inadvertently.

ALI VITALI: Such as?

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Something -- thank you - - the -- I'll buy Two copies of this book.

ALI VITALI: Perfect.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: The -- I want to ask you about something that Kamala Harris is not doing, which is talking to the press.

And I know that people think, oh, you guys are just special pleaders or whatever, the mainstream media.

But the only way voters can see a candidate operate without a net, without a script or a teleprompter, is in a professionally-run interview.

And so the question, I'll turn to Eugene as the president of the White House Correspondents' Association, not that it's your problem directly, but it's bothering me that they're holding her back from what I think of as a test, one of many tests that a candidate should go through.

EUGENE DANIELS: No, you're 100 percent right.

She has to do that.

Because it's not just that we're complaining about it.

I'm hearing that from voters.

I'm not asking them, like do you think she should do an interview?

Like I haven't seen her unscripted.

I think that it's great that she's reading off of a teleprompter, that she seems strong and powerful, but I want to see what she's going to do when you guys ask her about -- you know, they called her the border czar.

Why wasn't she -- I want to see you ask her why -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Why are they holding her back?

SUSAN PAGE: Because I think everything is going so well.

Why risk with the risk?

But, you know, one thing that increases the pressure on her to do interviews is the experience with Joe Biden, where there is criticism that they held him back, they protected him, and American voters were unaware of what his mental acuity, what the cost of aging that would have come out, perhaps, if he was doing interviews.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Mark, I'll give you the last 30 seconds.

You're the author of This Town.

You understand the media.

MARK LEIBOVICH: You hold up a cup.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: You're the author of This Town by Ali Vitali.

MARK LEIBOVICH: Both ways.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Last 30 seconds to you.

Does this matter to anyone but us?

MARK LEIBOVICH: Yes.

My journalist bone definitely is aching in that I want her to do this, I want her to be transparent, I want my colleagues, I want, ideally, me or you, to be able to interview her.

On the other hand, I just don't know if there are a lot of people out there who say, I'm not going to vote for her because she's not given a media interview.

ALI VITALI: That's right.