Former President Donald Trump's attacks on the racial identity of newly minted Democratic presumptive nominee Kamala Harris aren't simply the result of a "rogue" man who has lost impulse control — they're part of a calculated, intentional strategy.
That's according to Rolling Stone, which reported Friday — citing three people on and close to the Trump-Vance campaign — that team Trump believes attacking Harris' race as "loudly" as they can could convince independent voters she's a “phony."
"Trump believes he wins battles when he gets to define the messaging terrain and have Democrats and his media nemeses fight him on his terms (hence, Trump’s deep annoyance at Harris and Democrats’ relentless drive to call him, J.D. Vance, and other conservative leaders “weird”)," the report said. "So, Trump and his allies have been reveling in this line of racial-identity sniping, hoping to bait Democratic leaders into a mud fight."
Read also: Trump 'flailing' as Harris supporters turn his attacks into 'rallying points': Strategist
Indeed, some Trump advisers believed even before the disastrous question-and-answer session with the National Association of Black Journalists — in which Trump asked at one point, "is she Black?" — that smearing Harris as inauthentic could help them woo some Black voters, especially disaffected young Black men.
"The sources stressed that Trump’s comments were not — as has been the case numerous times in his campaigns and during his administration — a situation in which the former president has gone rogue on the stump and indulged his own lack of political impulse control. (These sources in the past have generally had no trouble privately admitting it when that has been the case.) Rather, this is a case of Trump and an array of his aides and influential allies settling on a race-baiting strategy that they are, for the time being at least, convinced will work out well for them in this presidential election," the report said.
One person close to Trump told the news outlet: “It’s not by accident; it’s intentional. We’re behind the [former] president, 100 percent."
