Trump vs Harris debate ‘doesn’t make much difference’ – former Trump adviser

We spoke to Marc Lotter, a former adviser to Donald Trump, who led his communications strategy when he ran for president in 2020.

Marc Lotter: I don’t think it makes much of a difference. I think that folks who came in supporting Kamala Harris probably left supporting Kamala Harris. The people who came in supporting President Trump left supporting President Trump. And so far, what I’ve seen, both through a Reuters panel and in The New York Times, some great reporting, is that undecided voters left unconvinced because Kamala Harris can’t and won’t answer the basic question of how would she lower prices, how would she secure the border when she was the person, along with Joe Biden, who broke both of those things?

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: Would you agree the momentum still seems to be with her? She hasn’t put a foot wrong yet, and there were no knockouts last night, however hard President Trump tried.

Marc Lotter: I don’t think she actually has, she’s never gotten the lead. So I think her momentum, her honeymoon, has come to an end. And even when you look at the polling averages… Because I think all polls have some built in biases one way or the other, so if you look at the polling averages, Kamala Harris right now is about 5 to 7 points behind where Joe Biden was at this point in 2020. She’s anywhere from 3 to 5 points behind where he was in the battleground states. And in some cases, she’s even doing worse than Hillary Clinton was doing in 2016. That 2020 election came down to 43,000 votes in three states. And if you’re performing 3 to 5 points worse, that’s not a good place to be if you’re a Democrat.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: So who are those people that you are now trying to reach? Who was Donald Trump trying to speak to last night?

Marc Lotter: I think obviously he was trying to speak to that small swath of people, maybe 3, 5 per cent who are undecided still. And I think in one case, what we’ve seen and some of the comments that we’ve seen publicly after the debate, was maybe they were open to taking a look at Kamala Harris because she was a new candidate – no one really knew much about her. But since she can’t spell out what she’s going to do to actually improve their lives, well, they know Donald Trump is going to do it. He did it once before and he’ll do it again.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: So do you think the sort of the craziest stuff doesn’t matter, the pet-eating immigrants and all that, that people just discount all of that because what they care about is cost of living?

Marc Lotter: I think we’ve seen ten years now where the media has run wild with all kinds of things about Donald Trump…

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: I mean, he came out with it.

Marc Lotter: When they look at it, I do think that they will judge this on basically the economy. I think they’ll judge this on the immigration crisis that’s in our country. And I think they will correctly blame Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for creating all of these problems. And now she’s not the change agent to fix what she broke.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: How do you see those moments? The other side, what you would portray as sort of the elite, will look at that sort of thing about dog and cat-eating immigrants in Springfield and laugh and go, ‘There he goes again. He’s crazy. He looks stupid.’ When he says that, what do you think, when he says that? Do you just think it’s kind of amusing or what?

Marc Lotter: Well, there are reports that have been documented. There has been public testimony about people who have talked about migrants and geese and ducks in those parks. And there’s no question that the tiny town of Springfield, which has about 60,000 people now has 15 to 20,000 illegal Haitian immigrants. So they are struggling. Many of them are struggling with people squatting on their yards. They’re having problems with auto accidents because the folks there now can drive, but they can’t read. And there have been reports…

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: Yeah but people aren’t eating cats is the point, are they?

Marc Lotter: But I think it brings a bigger picture.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: Yeah, and similarly, on the abortion question – when he says things that aren’t true, like doctors are killing babies. Again, what’s your reaction to that?

Marc Lotter: Hang on a second. There are 15 states where abortion is legal up until the moment of birth. And Kamala Harris voted against the Baby Care Act, which says that a baby that survives a botched abortion must be given life giving care. Tim Walz actually signed a bill in Minnesota that says doctors do not have to provide life saving care.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: Do you think that’s a good attack line still?

Marc Lotter: …in Minnesota under that law, and then he stopped the hospital reporting now because he didn’t want to see the numbers anymore.