The Trump Campaign’s Theory of Victory

The Ezra Klein Show

New York Times Opinion

Society & Culture, Government, News

4.6 • 11K Ratings

🗓️ 18 July 2024

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Trump campaign isn’t just expecting to win this election; it’s expecting to win it in a landslide. And top Trump campaign officials were feeling that confident even before Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance. So what’s their strategy to achieve the blowout they’re imagining? And is their confidence justified? Tim Alberta is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of “American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump.” He recently spent months profiling Trump’s campaign managers, Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita. In this conversation, Alberta offers an inside look at the Trump campaign and their theory of victory. We discuss how the campaign has tailored its messaging to capitalize on Joe Biden’s weaknesses; LaCivita’s and Wiles’s personal backgrounds and approaches to the campaign; what Trump’s vice-presidential pick, Senator J.D. Vance, signals about Trump’s vision for his presidency; and more. Mentioned: “Trump Is Planning for a Landslide Win” by Tim Alberta “How J.D. Vance Won Over Donald Trump” by Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman Book Recommendations: Tired of Winning by Jonathan Karl Kingdom of Rage by Elizabeth Neumann Romney by McKay Coppins Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs. This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Annie Galvin, Elias Isquith and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From New York Times opinion, this is the Ezra Klein Show. I'm recording this on day three of the Republican National Convention, which has not
0:27.2	been like any Republican Convention in recent memory. Recent Republican conventions, and I've been at a number of them, have been chaotic underplanned affairs.
0:38.0	You remember Clint Eastwood interviewing a chair in 2012, or the weirdly dark and disunited Republican conventions in 2016 and 2020.
0:48.0	But this time, this time Republicans have fallen in line,
0:52.8	falling in line behind Donald Trump,
0:55.1	in line behind his vision of the party.
0:58.0	One thing I'm seeing up there,
0:59.8	something I think a lot of liberals are missing,
1:02.2	is yes, the Republican Party has become a personality cult.
1:06.0	Yes, it has become the property of one man, but that is allowing that one man to make changes
1:11.7	to what the Republican Party is, that his predecessors
1:14.7	could not.
1:16.2	It is presenting something different up there, not entirely different, but importantly so.
1:22.4	And maybe it wouldn't be that way if Trump seemed to be
1:24.6	tumbling towards defeat and Speaker after Speaker were thinking they could be the
1:29.1	one to pick up the pieces, but right now he's hurtling towards victory or at least his campaign thinks that he is and so as far as I can tell it as everybody else at that convention.
1:39.6	Tim Alberta is at that convention. He's a staff writer at the Atlantic who just
1:43.7	published a fantastic profile of Trump's two campaign managers and their theory of
1:48.4	victory. He's also the author of American carnage on the front lines of the Republican Civil War and the rise of President
1:54.6	Trump and the kingdom, the power and the glory, American evangelicals in the age of extremism.
2:00.9	Both are important books if you want to understand this era in American politics.
2:05.0	As always, my email, as a recline show at NYUtimes.com. Tim Alberta, welcome to the show.
	...

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