A prominent New York Times political reporter told CNN on Tuesday night pushed back at the notion that the Trump campaign would want to coordinate its messaging with Sen. J.D. Vance, saying she thinks the campaign is “perfectly happy” to keep Vance in an “attack dog” role.
Vance (R-OH) has recently called for “the left” to tone down its political rhetoric following a second plot to assassinate Trump, and said there needs to be a “reduction in the ridiculous and inflammatory political rhetoric.”
“We cannot tell the American people that one candidate is a fascist, and if he’s elected, it is gonna be the end of American democracy,” he said.
Maggie Haberman joined Anderson Cooper to discuss what appears to be conflicting messages in the Trump orbit. Cooper played a supercut of Trump repeatedly calling Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats “fascists” and tried to make sense of Vance’s comment calling for the left to avoid such rhetoric.
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“The ‘fascist’ thing — that just seems such an obvious thing that Trump says. You would think, I mean, he knows that. You would think he would coordinate at least his statements with the Trump campaign a little bit.”
But Haberman said the Trump campaign is probably A-okay with Vance’s statement.
“I don’t think the Trump campaign is unhappy at all with what J.D. Vance is saying,” said Haberman. “I think that we have seen for a long time that when Trump is called something, he tends to say it back to whoever has said it to him. And I think the Trump campaign is perfectly happy with the role that J.D. Vance is playing as an attack dog.”
If the campaign was unhappy, she said, Vance would not continue doing so. Vance’s promotion of a racist and baseless conspiracy theory that Haitian immigrants are abducting and eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, the campaign takes no issue.
“That gets to a topic of immigration, which is what they want to be talking about,” Haberman said.
And when it comes to the assassination attempt and incendiary rhetoric, she expects neither side will stop attacking the other.
“It has become useful for the Trump campaign to say it,” she said.
While Trump is trying to “project strength” and as “somebody who can live through anything” following the second plot on his life, his campaign appears to be less confident.
“I don’t think his campaign feels especially solid right now, security-wise,” said Haberman, later adding that Trump met with the acting head of the Secret Service on Monday.
At that meeting, she said, Trump questioned whether he can continue to golf. The Secret Service head said it would require additional resources to keep him safe.
Watch the clip below or at this link.
