Tamara Keith and Amy Walter on the Trump campaign’s response to the DNC

Good to speak with you. Geoff: Let's bring in our politics Monday team to tick through all we have talked about so far. Good to see you both. This convention will provide Kamala Harris with such an introduction to the biggest audience of her campaign. Just looking at the latest polling there is a CBS news poll out yesterday that has her up 51% nationally, 51/48, then she is tied 50-50 in the battlegrounds. What more do Democrats need to do and what can they do to sustain this momentum moving ahead to November? Amy: That is why tonight will be very interesting in watching of course the president who was supposed to be accepting the nomination, actually coming here and endorsing his vice president. He wants to of course talk about his legacy. The reports are coming out, he wants to move forward, not just talk about the past but basically passing the mantle to Harris. At the same time, part of the reason Harris is doing as well as she is she is not seen as part of the Biden legacy. In other words, she is not as closely tied to decisions the Biden administration made. One of the most interesting data points I have seen so far from recent polling, a Washington post poll, how much influence do you think Kamala Harris has had within the Biden administration on economic policy and immigration. Only about one third of voters thought that she had significant influence on those issues. So on the one hand she wants Biden to say nice things about her of course. On the other hand she is going to want a little, uh, maybe we can have a little distance here. But I -- I like you but we have to go our own way. Amna: What about that distance? We cannot underscore how quickly enough this shift happened. It was just a month ago there was a different person at the top of this ticket. We have seen some parent -- policies from the harris/walz campaign on the economy come out. We expect to see more of them. Though she need to break more from especially problematic policies that have created issues with voters from the Biden administration? Tamara: I think she has been creating a tonal distance but not actually a policy difference. We can see that on gaza-related policy where she talks a lot more about concern for civilian life in gaza, but she still has the same position in terms of Israel and full support of Israel as it pursues this. In terms of the economy, she says I know prices are high. You don't have to tell me prices are high. She talks about it in a way that is somehow more empathetic, or just emphasizes things differently. Then just in terms of the tone of her campaign, and I think we will see this played out in the convention, tonally is a very different campaign than the one president Biden was running. She is running a much more positive, forward-looking, even joyful, she would say, campaign. Biden talks a lot about democracy on the line, a tipping point. And really, it was a darker campaign. Hers is a more joyful campaign. And that is another area of tonal separation from Biden. Though continuing to essentially the policies she has been rolling out on the economy are Biden's unfinished business. They are parts of the build back better plan that just did not make it through congress. Amy: That is such a great point about the difference within the messenger and the message. Even on the economic message, what she has been talking about, about price gouging in particular, that is something we have been seeing down ballot Democrats talk about for a while. Senator Bob Casey from Pennsylvania started running those ads in may. So I think that is a very good point, that the message is maybe slightly different. It's really much more about the fact that she can be seen as turning the page even though the policies are N goingot -- not going to be drastically different. Geoff: Tonight is president Biden's night. Tam, building on your previous point, how closely aligned is the -- does the Harris campaign want to be with president Biden, and how do they use them effectively moving forward? Tamara: Biden is promising he will be out on the road and out campaigning. We saw them appearing to get a last week at an event about bringing down prescription drug prices, which is one of these things that gotten applause line -- things that always gets an applause line. But certainly she is a different person, she is running a different campaign. You talk to Biden aides and they say the speech he is going to give tonight is not a farewell address. They keep saying it is not a farewell address, it is a call to action. Part of that is that president Biden, he has said goodbye before. He doesn't like saying goodbye in a way that makes it seem the end.when he dropped out in 1987, when he dropped out in 2008. Every time he said, I have more to say. This time is the last time, although he does have more to say and he will try to keep saying it for the duration. Amna: I would love to get your take on the fact that obviously the trump/vance campaign has been counterprogram in and they will be this whole week. Here is what former president trump had to say earlier when he was speaking in York, Pennsylvania. >> Very simply, Kamala Harris is an economy wrecker and a country destroyer. Our country will be destroyed if she gets in. Her radical liberal agenda ruined San Francisco. It ruined California when she was the attorney general. It crushed our middle class, demolished our border, set the world on fire, and now she wants to be promoted to the job-killer-in-chief. Amna: What is the strategy here? Amy: She is using this opportunity to define for herself. You talk about convention bounces. This is the chance to unify the party and they get a bump after the convention. I do not think that will happen here. Instead it is so much more about speaking beyond this place we are sitting in right now in Chicago. Speaking to the independent voters who right now don't know much about her but what they have seen they do like. She is doing better among independent voters than Biden. For Republicans, they want to fill in the blanks. They want to be the ones saying she is telling you this, America, but let me tell you, this is who she really is. Really tying her as closely as possible to Biden. That is why tonight is such a fascinating needle to thread for the Harris campaign. It is notable this is happening on Monday, which is not the highest profile night traditionally for a convention. And that this is not somebody who is going to be introducing her on her big night on Thursday. Amna: What stands out to you? Tamara: This is quite possibly the most active week the trump campaign has had of the entire campaign. He is going to have rallies in swing states every day this week. He has been doing one event a week, or maybe last week he held one rally and a press conference. He has not been an active campaigner. He has not been going to swing states as much as you would expect from a very active campaign. This week is different. They are counterprogramming and going to those swing states, many of which he has only visited a couple of times. So this is a shift. I do think in terms of the messaging they are still struggling to figure out what to make stick. Part of that is the clip you played is very much that is the message trump's campaign advisors one him to stick to. However, every time I turn on one of his speeches he is talking about who is more beautiful, him or Kamala Harris. He is talking about TiVo and random things. He is not on message. He is having difficulty figuring ou how to talk aboututice president Harris. He has said he doesn't have a lot of respect for her and he feels it is ok to make insults on her intelligence. That is not really the best way to win over independent voters, including many independent or formerly Republican women who are trying to figure out where to land. Amna: We have heard Republicans