The Trump campaign is very worried about how he will attack Kamala Harris

Donald Trump is well known for his blistering attacks and insults on his political enemies, but the former president’s boisterous form rhetoric is something his advisors seem to be very worried about now that the election has changed. 

President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 election blew a hole in Trump’s strategy for the next three months. However, the quick rise of Vice President Kamala Harris may have looked like a prime opportunity for Trump. 

The former president has been testing out a variety of insults and attacks against Harris since she ascended to the status of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, but Trump’s vectors of attack have some of his aides worried. 

On July 30th, The Washington Post reported an individual close to the "campaign's thinking" told the news outlet that Trump's campaign is worried about the types of personal attacks that the former president could launch against Harris.

“We hope he doesn’t act like a crazy racist and sexist person, but we can’t control him. There are probably dog whistles and racist and sexist tropes he’ll stumble into,” the source, who spoke with The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity, told the outlet. 

“His campaign is going to try to keep him out of that rhetoric,” the source continued, “but it’s going to be difficult.” So far, Trump has made a bit of a fool of himself in his attempts to attack his new 2024 opponent.

In a recent attack, the former president aimed his piercing insight at the Vice President’s race during a nasty talk at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in which he claimed Harris “became a black person” according to BBC News. 

"I didn't know she was black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn black and now she wants to be known as black," Trump said. "So I don't know - Is she Indian? Or is she black?" Trump questioned. Harris was quick to respond. 

The Vice President said Trump’s remarks were "the same old show" and referred to them as divisiveness... and disrespect. She went on to say that the “American people deserve better” saying the country needed a leader who united rather than divided. 

Trump previously tested out a few lines of attack against Harris during a campaign rally in St. Cloud, Minnesota on July 27th that saw him call the Vice President a “victim” and a “radical left lunatic” according to Politico. Trump also made fun of her laugh. 

Based on how Trump has acted in the days since Harris became the presumptive 2024 presidential nominee pick of the Democratic Party, it seems he will not be able to avoid the allure of hitting the Vice President with the types of attacks that concern his campaign team. 

Interestingly, Democrats probably saw the former president’s unique brand of assaulting rhetoric coming from the very first days that Harris became the possible pick to lead the top of the party’s 2024 ticket in November. 

“He will do it — he can’t help himself,” California Representative Maxime Waters stated according to The Washington Post. “He will say terrible things. He will make up things.” But if Trump could help himself, he might have a better shot at beating Harris. 

Former Nikki Haley aide Rob Godfrey explained that the current moment is more politically fraught than when Trump ran against other women like Haley and Hillary Clinton, so if he wants to beat Harris then he needs to focus on attacking her policies and not her personally. 

Unfortunately for his supporters, as savvy a political operator as Trump may be, the former president was never a politician who understood how to brand himself in a way that made him appeal to the vast majority of voters in the country. 

A good example of Trump’s political naivety in 2024's current ‘politically fraught moment’ was his shameful attack on Vice President Harris’ identity as a black woman during his speech at the National Association of Black Journalists convention. 

Whether or not Trump will learn from this mistake and focus on attacking Harris’ policies rather than her as an individual has yet to be seen, but it appears the days of the former president’s blistering personal attack may have finally ended with Kamala Harris. 

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