By JILL COLVIN and BILL BARROW (Associated Press)
GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) — He’s argued his four criminal indictments and mug shot bolstered his support among Black voters who see him as a victim of discrimination just like them.
He’s compared himself to Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in an Arctic prison imprisoned by Vladimir Putin, and suggested that he is a political dissident, too.
And in nearly every public appearance, he repeats falsehoods about the election he lost.
Candidates on the verge of winning their parties’ nominations generally massage their messaging and moderate positions that may energize hardcore primary voters but are less appealing to a broader audience. In political terms, they “pivot.”
Not Donald Trump. The former president is instead doubling down on often-incendiary rhetoric that offends wide swaths of voters, seeming to be doing little to rein in his most irascible and oftentimes self-defeating instincts. That’s even as some of his most loyal allies have suggested he shift his focus and tone down rhetoric that risks offending independent voters and people outside his base.
“Donald Trump is Donald Trump. That’s not going to change,” said senior campaign adviser Chris LaCivita. “Our job is not to remake Donald Trump.”
LaCivita and other top campaign officials instead say their role is to provide the organization “to amplify and to force project” Trump’s message.
The campaign, he said, had already assumed a general election posture before voting began, running ads attacking President Joe Biden before the Iowa caucuses. So while Trump is now talking less about his last remaining GOP rival, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, his campaign is focused on building out a general election infrastructure as it turns its focus from early voting states to November battlegrounds.
That includes efforts to take over the Republican National Committee, with plans to consolidate the…
Read the full article here
