Trump’s Wholesale Renovation of the Republican Party

want to meet great minds who don't think alike join the Atlantic for our annual Festival on September 19th and 20th featuring two days of lively exchange and debate on the issues that matter most you can attend this can't miss live experience in person at the warf in Washington DC or online from anywhere here from best-selling authors elected officials notable actors CEOs and more this year's speakers include representative hakeim Jeff Carl Rove Anna De Smith Jake Tapper Jonathan height Senator John fedman Noah Holly Elaine welteroth and more of today's most influential thinkers in conversation with Atlantic journalists including Jeffrey Goldberg Jamal Hill and Derek Thompson tickets are on sale now at theatlantic festival.com [Music] what a week in American politics the Republican party is gathered in Wisconsin to renominate Donald Trump for president the convention follows a near Miss assassination attempt on Trump and the announcement of Ohio Senator JD Vance as his pick for VP all the while President Biden faces calls from within the Democratic party for him to step aside I'm Adam Harris and this is Radio Atlantic Hana Rosen is still away working on a special project for this episode I'm hoping to understand what's different about Trump's 2024 campaign and what if anything Saturday's assassination attempt has changed to do this I'm joined by staff writer Tim Alberta from the RNC convention hall hey Tim Adam what's happening man not too much thanks for coming on you've covered Republican politics for a while now you're currently in Milwaukee covering the RNC what's the feeling there the feeling here is like an election night Victory party that started 4 months early I've been to a lot of Republican conventions I've spent a lot of years covering Republican politics and I can safely say I have never been around a more confident even cocky bunch of people uh who are just um entirely convinced that that that this campaign is already over and that they are Marching to victory in November the only question being how big of a victory is it you know leading into this week we all thought that the big news was going to be the announcement of Trump's VP pick so what was the reaction to Trump picking Ohio Senator JD Vance you know from what I can see the reception has been pretty enthusiastic you know this is a really self- selecting group here in Milwaukee I mean the the party as an institution has been completely remade made by Donald Trump from the top down you know Donald Trump picking someone who is seen as kind of an air apparent to this populist America First Empire that Trump has created is of course going to be received really well in a place like this the question obviously is you know for folks who exist more in the center right you know moderate establishment business Friendly Lane of the Republican Party there is I think some some hesitancy uh some doubt about JD Vance particularly not just even from the moderate Wing but from the defense Hawk wing of the party and the JD Vance pick is a pretty concrete signal that to the extent there's been a civil war inside the Republican party over foreign policy National Security issues the fights over you know funding Ukraine obviously in this past year and so I think that those questions and those criticisms do exist here but they're very much on the margins because this is at the end of the day Trump's party yeah coming into this National Convention was a little bit different right there was always something that was looming over it and that is the events of of Saturday and so what impact has the assassination attempt on Trump had on Republicans I guess the the thing that is most striking Adam is there's sort of an added layer of invincibility to Trump if you thought that the party was already sort of a cult of personality and that there were already some of these you know kind of subtle undertones of a of a Messianic complex attached to Donald Trump then you know certainly the events of Saturday uh and you know specifically the the sort of getting up bleed eating from the Assassin's bullet defiantly pumping the Fist and saying to fight right like it I think it's created this sense of trump as Invincible Trump as Immortal Trump as you know you can't kill Trump they tried right like so there is almost an added like Supernatural Dimension to the conversation and we've heard that from some of the speakers this week people you know stating very plainly that God uh has his hands on Trump that God wants Trump alive that God kept Trump alive and that he has a plan for him so I would say that that is a a pretty discernable shift in tone and and sort of an escalating of the ways in which Trump is sort of lionized by the party faithful at an event like this yeah you know you've covered conventions before how does that kind of Cockiness compare to conventions that you've covered in the past or that you've seen in the past there's really no comparison if you think back to 2008 and then 2012 Republicans did not think they were going to beat Barack Obama I mean especially in 08 but then even in 12 I mean there there there was just really there was some enthusiasm around Romney but you know there wasn't a lot of swagger there there wasn't really any discernable confidence and then 2016 you know look Donald Trump half the people at the convention in Cleveland Cleland in 2016 were anti-trump you know they were delegates who were bound to cast their votes for Trump because of how he' performed in their states but they were not happy about it and they had come to the convention some of them to make a stink about it and really were hoping for a a floor fight to try to even stop Trump from becoming the nominee so certainly the idea that he was going to go on to win that was just kind of fantasy at that point and much less go on to win and be renominated in 24 and become the face of the party nobody could have imagined that so I I think what feels different about this moment is not just the confidence but the wholesale renovation of the Republican party to become such a a distinctly trumpian entity and I think the confidence in some way flows from that it it flows from a sense of like we know who we are as a party now we weren't entirely sure with McCain or with Romney or even with Trump in 16 but now with his third time being nominated we know who we are and I think probably more importantly Adam they know who they're facing and they're facing Joe Biden who is just objectively speaking a very vulnerable and diminished candidate from the man that Donald Trump faced just four years earlier considering where Biden is in his campaign at the moment what are Trump's people thinking as they sort of watch the drama unfold around him the great source of confidence inside of the Trump campaign has much more to do with Joe Biden than it has to do with Donald Trump the fact is Joe Biden is in many ways sort of a dream opponent for Donald Trump to run against because some of Trump's own glaring deficiencies his at times incoherent ramblings from the stage his age his own visible decline are sort of neutralized and almost forgotten because relative to Biden Trump looks young and sprightly and energetic I think there's also a fundamental contrast a visual contrast that the Trump campaign from day one has been deeply invested in in drawing out which is strength versus weakness this is really what animates everything they talk about in the campaign and everything they do from the voters that they're targeting to the digital content that they're creating the mailers that they're going to be sending out everything the Trump campaign is doing is meant to focus on this contrast of strength versus weakness and they just believe that when you're talking about the southern border when you're talking about dealing with the geopolitical craziness happening in the world when you're talking about inflation whatever it may be that Donald Trump is perceived as sort of an alpha even to people who don't like him and that Biden is perceived as feeble even to people who like him and and so all of that Adam I have to emphasize all of that was the theory of the case before the debate when Joe Biden looked like he had one foot in the grave already and it was before the assassination attempt of Donald Trump and so what the Trump campaign now has are the two you know most Vivid moments of this campaign both of them are directly in service of this contrast that they've been trying to push and so the Trump people now all they can do is cross their fingers and say their prayers and hope that Joe Biden remains their opponent because because from their Vantage Point there's no way he can win and what would they think if he dropped out of the race it would be a fire drill they have spent the past year and a half engineering this campaign to run a very specific race against a very specific opponent in Joe Biden and listen the people running Trump's operation will say you know what doesn't matter bring them on who ever it is that you know any Democrat is going to be saddled with Joe Biden's baggage right but that's not true that and they know it's not true they recognize that if Biden were to step down and if someone else were to be at the top of the ticket it would in some fundamental ways send them back to the drawing board and and force them to reimagine the messaging reimagine the targeting reimagine how they think about the contrasts in this campaign it would also represent sort of a reset moment for a Democratic party that has been in a sort of Freefall of late and and Republicans are entirely content to sit back and pop some popcorn and enjoy the show they feel like there's nothing that they need to do right now because the Democrats are doing the hard work for them but if Biden were to suddenly get out then that changes everything you know you recently L wrote a deep dive on the campaign with the headline Trump is planning for a landslide win so what is different about Trump's 2024 operations and strategy boy where do I even start I mean look Adam Trump in 2016 didn't even have a campaign I mean sure I suppose technically he did but like there was no real infrastructure there was no real organization it was just a couple of guys who were sort of making it up as they went along and it was kind of almost an elaborate prank in some ways I mean it was it was sort of the reality TV show experiment of a campaign for the presidency and when Donald Trump became the nominee that's really when the Republican National Committee which was led at the time by R Prius basically stepped in and ran the campaign for him because Trump didn't have any sort of a get out the vote you know it was a totally non-existent political operation in 2016 and then in 2020 you know Trump's the incumbent president so he's got a lot of money and on paper they're building something out that looks uh more professional and more conventional something that we're used to seeing but it was a horribly run campaign they burned through tons of money and the campaign wasn't run by very experienced people and they paid a price for it this time around you've got some of the shrewdest and sharpest and most cutthroat people in the Republican Party who are in charge of the campaign and they have from day one stressed efficiency they're really sort of focusing on some of the core competencies of the campaign and I think the most important thing Adam that this campaign has been able to do is that Chris levita and Susie WS who are the co- architects of the campaign and they are managing it together as a partnership they've really been able to move Trump to a better place in terms of his own capabilities his own actions as a candidate uh he is embracing male voting he is overseeing a campaign now that is actually using some pretty cutting Edge technology to solicit absentee votes whereas 4 years ago he was forbidding his own Republican voters from using the mail so there are a lot of ways in which this campaign is just sort of light years Beyond either the 2020 or the 2016 operations and you know one of the reasons why in that last campaign Trump was was effectively saying that you know we don't want male voting we don't want absentee voting was because Republicans have kind of viewed it as a gamble right when there's more early voting it typically favors Democrats so is that a sort of gamble that they're taking in this election by by emphasizing mail voting absentee voting what what sort of gamble are they taking with this new approach to the Trump campaign well here's the thing we have become very accustomed uh those of us who cover politics to thinking that if turnout is high that automatically benefits Democrats because the lower propensity voters the lower engagement voters and we're talking about young people we're talking about uh particularly young black men young Latino men uh we we talk about certain demographics that are just traditionally far less likely to turn out in vote and the the Assumption has always been well if you see higher turnout that means that those people are coming out to vote and those people are traditionally Democratic constituencies therefore it's bad for the Republican party this election I think could really be remembered as a bit of a watershed Adam because what we see in all of the publicly available data as well as what we're told is in a lot of the private data the polling being done by both parties right now is that for the first time that anyone can remember a lot of these low engagement and low propensity voters are breaking heavily in favor of Donald Trump breaking heavily in favor of the Republican Party and if that bears out come November I think it's going to force the Democratic party to sort of fundamentally reassess and and recalibrate their approach to a whole host of issues but primarily just to this question of how could it be that Donald Trump the guy who would seemingly be the least likely to penetrate key pieces of the democratic Coalition and steal them way how could it be that he's the one who does this and and to be clear Adam there are still some Skeptics both in the Republican party and in the Democratic party people who look at the polling and who say I just don't buy it I don't buy that Trump is going to wind up winning you know 20 to 25% of the black vote I I don't believe it right and until we see it some of that skepticism is certainly warranted but I think part of the reason that the Trump campaign has been so confident in making this play and in emphasizing the vote by mail and the absentee and trying to connect and engage with some of these voters who have a history of using non-traditional voting means is because their modeling they feel like it's airtight their modeling shows that these people who have been reliably Democratic in the past that if they vote they're voting for Trump and there's just no overstating what a sea change that would represent in our politics all right we're going to take a short break we'll have more with t Alberta in a [Music] moment want to meet great minds who don't think alike join the Atlantic for our annual Festival on September 19th and 20th featuring two days of lively exchange and debate on the issues that matter most you can attend this can't miss live experience in person at the warf in Washington DC or online from anywhere hear from best-selling authors elected officials notable actors CEOs and more this year's speakers include representative hakeim Jeff Carl Rove Anna Dev Smith Jake Tapper Jonathan height Senator John fedman Noah Holly Elaine welteroth and more of today's most influential thinkers in conversation with Atlantic journalists including Jeffrey Goldberg Jamal Hill and Derek Thompson tickets are on sale now at the Atlantic festival.com you know early on kind of coming into the campaign we knew who the candidates kind of were right the primary felt like it would it was already predestined pre-ordained that you would have another Trump versus Biden and Trump was the one coming in with the baggage right it's it's hard to talk about him without talking talking about the cases that were looming over him without talking about um the conviction but on Monday just as the RNC began the federal judge in Florida overseeing his classified documents trial dismissed the case what do you make of that news and and what impact will Trump's legal issues have on this campaign well first of all I'm sure that the timing was totally coincidental right I'm I'm I'm sure that judge Canon had no idea that it was the first day of the Republican National Convention um you know it's interesting Adam because this thing that was perceived to be a great vulnerability you know potentially the albatross around his neck that could prevent him from winning the presidency it suddenly feels almost like a non-issue I mean between some of the court cases getting bumped and bumped and bumped back again uh to help him scheduling wise this one being dismissed you know the the con the conviction in Manhattan creating a financial windfall that had actually pushed him ahead of Joe Biden in the fundraising race and and just to pause on that point for a minute Adam Trump was getting trounced financially for the first year of this campaign he was way way way behind and and his cash reserves were really depleted because they had to keep paying all these legal bills well suddenly he gets convicted in Manhattan and he raises these record setting sums of money in the 2 or 3 days that follow and wouldn't you know it we check the FEC filings and Trump is entering the month of July with more cash in the bank than Biden is so it's really remarkable how this again this thing that was supposed to be his greatest liability has sort of evaporated and if anything almost seems to very strangely have become like an asset there's been this long simmering sense among Trump's lieutenants that he is a target that he is that he is persecuted that he is an Enemy of the State and that they won't stop at anything to take him down you know that language of persecution I feel like is important here um because I want to ask you about something you've written a great deal about that we've talked about at length that's this sort of intersection of faith in politics um you wrote a book about your journey as an Evangelical Christian and the son of a pastor and in this election cycle right you've warned about how the forces of Christian nationalism On The Rise both inside the church and inside the Republican party so from your view at the EP epicenter of the party this week how do you expect those forces to affect the Trump campaign you you know this is a really interesting historical moment we're approaching because this is our first post R Wade presidential election for 50 years you've had single isue voters uh you know Conservative Catholics Evangelical Christians who really don't have any appetite for partisan politics and who would otherwise be inclined to just ignore all the noise come every 4th November but they have been convinced that because presidents appoint Supreme Court Justices and because the Supreme Court and only the Supreme Court can ultimately strike down roie Wade that you have to vote in a presidential election and you have to vote for the Republican I think what we're about to find out is what number of those single issue highly committed pro-life Advocates suddenly find themselves recognizing that the issue is now def federalized that it's no longer a presidential issue it's no longer a supreme court issue and decide that they're going to stay home because they can't stomach voting for Donald Trump again so I think that is kind of a question mark Adam looming over the proceedings here that's that's gotten very little attention but it's something that I'm going to be really focusing on in the months ahead especially in light of the changes to the Republican platform that were I I think obviously very upsetting to some in the social conservative movement effectively stripping out what had been the traditional language around uh the the abortion issue and also it shouldn't go ignored stripping out the language around marriage being between one man and one woman so there's a feeling among I think some of the Evangelical activist leaders that they are sort of being pushed to the side and that's because they are in some sense Adam here's the thing Donald Trump and his campaign they have made a calculation that these folks the Evangelical they're not going anywhere what are they going to go vote for Joe Biden right like that's that's the level of confidence that they have and so I think some of these decisions at least at a tactical level are riskier than I think many people realize and there really could be if this winds up being a close election there really could be a price to pay for some of these Maneuvers that have been made here and Adam let's be clear like if Trump is elected he is going to have some people in his administration in his cabinet in his West Wing who are self-described Christian nationalists I mean there's just no question about it so I don't think that the threat that I've been writing about is is diminished in any way or any less relevant I just think that the Trump folks are actually pretty smart and Savvy in recognizing that the Christian nationalist Menace that has been sort of drawn to into the Public's attention that it is a huge liability for them politically you know you see the like the handmaid's tale memes that go around the internet right like I think the Trump folks recognize that they need to head that off and they need to distance themselves from any of that narrative but that doesn't mean that it won't Loom large and play a really critical role in his administration yeah thinking further about Trump and the Christian right he's leaned into an image of himself as a persecuted martyr and now he's nearly been killed um what impact do you think the assassination attempt will have for people on the Christian right or what impact has it already had for people on the Christian right you know it's hard to say because this is all moving so quickly right just being here in Milwaukee this week Adam I mean it's apparent and you're hearing it from the stage you're hearing it from delegates on the floor you're hearing it just in casual conversations with people like in the line for coffee like there's defin definely a sense of the sort of Supernatural presence and this divine intervention that has spared Donald Trump and made him into even more powerful a figure than he was you know just a week ago you sense that from others my big question is will we get it from Trump himself I have spent as much time as any reporter in America at Trump r listening to him dissecting his words kind of studying any evolution in his thinking even his just oneoff Rifts trying to understand you know how he might be approaching things in a new or different manner I've got to say that this acceptance speech he'll be giving at the Republican convention is to me probably the most significant speech he'll ever give because if in fact there is any real change in the Man based on the events of last week if some of his advisers are to be believed he is been talking in kind of strangely spiritual terms and has been invoking God in ways that he has really never been known to Do privately if there is some kind of meaningful change in Donald Trump himself forget about the Grassroots forget about the party officials all of his supporters I mean that That Could That Could Have I think really significant implications politically and otherwise uh for the party and for the country so I think that's the biggest piece of the puzzle here that everyone in Milwaukee is sort of waiting on and and and wondering are we going to hear from the same guy who we've been hearing from all these years or is this going to be something a little bit different absolutely we'll be watching for that Tim thank you so much for talking with me today day and good luck at the convention Adam my pleasure [Music] man this episode was produced by Kevin Townson and edited by Claudine aade it was engineered by Rob smak and fact checked by Ivon Kim Claudine abade is the executive producer of Atlantic audio and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor Huna Rosen is the host of radio Atlantic and we'll return in a couple of weeks till then I'm Adam Harris and thank you for listening [Music] want to meet great minds who don't think alike join the Atlantic for our annual Festival on September 19th and 20th featuring two days of lively exchange and debate on the issues that matter most you can attend this can't miss live experience in person at the warf in Washington DC or online from anywhere here from best-selling authors elected officials notable actors CEOs and more this year's speakers include representative Hakim Jeff Carl Rove Anna De Smith Jake Tapper Jonathan height Senator John fedman Noah Holi Elaine welteroth and more of today's most influential thinkers in conversation with Atlantic journalists including Jeffrey Goldberg Jamal Hill and Derek Thompson tickets are on sale now at the Atlantic Festival .c