Message discipline, Trump style – Washington Examiner

As the Democratic Party crumbled following President Joe Biden’s poor debate performance, former President Donald Trump did something surprising: He stood still and let the drama unfold without him.

The only public comments on the Democratic disarray in Trump’s inner circle came Wednesday from his campaign co-chairs, who stressed that anyone Democrats could have nominated would have championed both Biden’s policies and his fitness to continue as president — including, with Trumpian flair, “the cackling co-pilot Kamala Harris” (though Trump’s real-life nicknames rarely use alliteration).

So far, the end result of this more discreet approach has been that Trump has taken control of the 2024 presidential race. He is a slight favorite in the polls, even against the leading contenders to succeed Biden.

This strategy was evident from the beginning of the debate. True, Trump attacked Biden early and repeatedly, as much as CNN’s debate rules allowed. But the former president was also willing to stand down and let his Democratic successor set himself on fire, waiting about 20 minutes before explicitly referring to Biden’s poor standing.

Trump’s third presidential campaign was a rigorous affair, the most disciplined of his career. Much of the credit for this goes to campaign managers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles. Still, while Trump remains a completely unconventional and free-spirited candidate, he himself played a role in this situation.

In Trump’s campaign speeches, the transitions between his prepared remarks and his participatory improvisations are less jarring. He has a standard speech about why Biden’s presidency was bad and his own first term was good. He regularly recites a nuanced speech on abortion intended to distance himself from a federal ban while staying to the right of Democrats on the issue, taking credit for the reversal of Biden’s position. Roe v. Wadeand recognizing that some Republicans must follow their hearts to a less compromising position.

Trump repeated those lines during the debate. While Biden botched his response, pivoting to talk about illegal immigration rather than one of his top campaign issues, the exchange went well for the presumptive Republican nominee. Those careful lines may not be enough to get Trump through the GOP’s electoral battle over the abortion agenda, but they got him through his debate with Biden.

Trump’s attempts to undermine Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) even became part of his usual pre-primary rhetoric. He repeatedly recounted, with little variation, that he had endorsed DeSantis in 2018 and then watched “that son of a bitch” prepare to run against him for president. That story was removed from Trump’s repertoire when DeSantis withdrew from the race and endorsed him after the Iowa caucuses.

Outside factors have contributed to Trump’s more disciplined approach. Cable news networks no longer broadcast his rallies in their entirety, in an attempt to deny him the media freedom that many in the industry thought they granted him in 2015-16. Trump has not posted much on Twitter since his ban on January 6, preferring instead to use his own platform, Truth Social.

This means that Trump’s most outrageous comments are often made to audiences who appreciate them rather than to voters who might find them off-putting. The media reports or amplifies some of his perceived gaffes, but carefully chooses how many of his comments are widely reported. This has sometimes worked to his advantage rather than his detriment.

The same thing happened during the CNN debate. The lack of audience and the ability for networks to mute microphones to avoid interruptions seemed designed to prevent Trump from reliving his highlights from past debates. Trump admitted before the debate that he was concerned about the lack of an audience to read his remarks and acknowledged that these were the rules of the Biden camp.

“What they did, I’m pretty sure, is they approached me with a debate that I couldn’t stand,” Trump told the Washington Examiner Byron York last month. “Dana Bash, Jake Tapper, no audience, sitting down, sitting down at the start, dead debate, turn off the mics when you’re not speaking so I can’t interrupt. … They knew I wouldn’t accept that.”

But Trump agreed. The rules ended up giving him the structure he needed to deliver a relatively measured performance and avoid a repeat of his first 2020 debate with Biden, which he lost by coming in too fast. This time, the focus was on Biden’s stutter, his hoarseness and his frequent inability to finish a thought.

Trump’s time in New York court for the silence trial, among other legal proceedings, also allowed him to continue to dominate the news with limited opportunities to speak, even though he regularly transgressed the rules of silence imposed by the courts. Trump was able to remain the dominant figure in the news, at least until the Biden debate debacle, without the oversaturation of 2016 and 2020.

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To be sure, Trump remains an undisciplined candidate compared to virtually everyone else. He continues to regularly say things that no other serious presidential candidate would say and attempts to do things in long public speeches that almost any other politician would avoid. He tests out unscripted topics like a stand-up comedian practicing a new routine.

But perhaps a few minor adjustments, plus a willingness to cede the spotlight to a struggling opponent, will keep Trump in charge a little longer.