Former President Donald Trump is frustrated that his attacks on Kamala Harris haven’t hit their target, a CNN analyst wrote Tuesday.
And it’s expected that he'll unleash a ‘brutal’ onslaught of vitriol over the next two months on a level that has not yet been seen.
Stephen Collinson wrote that Trump's attempts to “crush” Harris’s credibility and image as a force of change have been so far unsuccessful.
“Trump is not simply being true to his ill-disciplined self. He’s illustrating his struggle to respond to Harris’ transformation of the race,” Collinson wrote.
“Increasingly brazen attempts to puncture Harris’ bubble of hope also betray frustration in the Trump camp that she’s managing to distinguish herself from her boss and is presenting a fresher option than her 78-year-old GOP rival.
“And Trump is showing that there’s almost nothing he won’t do to win.”
Collinson wrote that Trump’s latest attacks on Harris have been “some of the most hardline political rhetoric in years.”
And he warned that “means the next two months are likely to be brutal.”
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He added, “It may make some sense for Trump to throw everything he can think of at Harris. In two presidential elections, the ex-president has never risen above 49% of the vote in the so-called blue wall states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin or in the national popular count. So his chances in November may depend more on destroying the current feel-good factor around Harris and depressing her prospects among small groups of persuadable voters in swing states than on holding out hope of winning over new voters himself.”
But, he said, the tactic also brings risks to himself. His attempts to hit Harris over the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan resulted in a scandal over his appearance at Arlington cemetery, giving a thumbs up by a grave.
That “could bolster Harris’ warnings that Americans are pining for a chance to leave the bitterness and chaos of the Trump era behind,” Collinson wrote.
He concluded, “Trump’s feral political offensive is a warning for Harris about what may lay ahead and underscores how hard it will be to prolong the smooth rollout of her sudden candidacy, her pick of Walz and her successful convention.
“But the ex-president’s intensity is also a sign — which is reflected in favorable public polling nationally and in swing states — that his early efforts to negatively define her have not worked.”
