Former President Trump is pointing to personal attacks at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago by former President Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as justification to disregard advice from allies to cut out insults and stick to policy attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris.
"Did you see Barack Hussein Obama last night? He was taking shots at your president. And so was Michelle," Trump told supporters at a rally in battleground North Carolina on Wednesday.
Pointing to Trump, the former first lady emphasized during her address at the DNC that "going small is petty, it’s unhealthy, and, quite frankly, it’s unpresidential."
And she argued that "it’s his same old con: doubling down on ugly, misogynistic, racist lies as a substitute for real ideas and solutions that will actually make people’s lives better."
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Minutes later, former President Obama called his successor in the White House "a 78-year-old billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems since he rode down his golden escalator nine years ago."
"It has been a constant stream of gripes and grievances that’s actually been getting worse now that he is afraid of losing to Kamala. There’s the childish nicknames, the crazy conspiracy theories, this weird obsession with crowd sizes," he added while making a hand gesture which seemed to imply he was mocking Trump’s manhood.
Trump, spotlighting the verbal attacks on him from the previous night, seemed to mock advice from Republican allies.
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"You know, they always say, ‘Sir, please stick to policy, don’t get personal,’" Trump said." And yet they’re getting personal all night long, these people."
"Do I still have to stick to policy?" Trump asked his supporters in the crowd.
While criticizing Harris over key issues such as border security, crime and inflation, Trump in the past four weeks has also continuously slammed the vice president and insulted her during speeches, news conferences and in social media posts.
Sources in Trump's political orbit have told Fox News that top advisers to the former president are quietly aiming to persuade him to tamp down on the insults of Harris and the questioning of the vice president's racial identity and instead focus on branding her an ultra-liberal.
Trump allies have publicly pitched the former president to refocus his attention.
"You’ve got to make this race not on personalities," former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said last week during an interview on Fox News' "America's Newsroom." "Stop questioning the size of her crowds and start questioning her position."
McCarthy emphasized that Trump has "a short time frame to do it, so don’t sit back. Get out there and start making the case."
During an interview last week with Bret Baier on Fox News' "Special Report," former U.N. ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley — Trump's top rival from the Republican presidential primaries earlier this year — also had some unsolicited advice for her former boss.
Haley, who reiterated that she wants Trump to win the presidential election, emphasized that "the campaign is not going to win talking about crowd sizes. It's not going to win talking about what race Kamala Harris is. It's not going to win talking about whether she's dumb. It's not. You can't win on those things. The American people are smart. Treat them like they're smart."
Trump, at his rally on Wednesday, imitated allies who have urged him to avoid personal insults.
"Sir, you must stick to policy. You’ll win it on the border. You’ll win it with inflation. You’ll win it with your great military that you built," Trump said.
And minutes later, he surveyed his supporters in the crowd, asking, "Should I get personal, or should I not get personal?"
Getting personal won by a very clear margin.
