This is an adapted excerpt from the Sept. 22 episode of “Inside with Jen Psaki.”
I think it’s safe to say that right now Donald Trump would desperately like us — and all of you — to be talking about certain things, like the crazy conspiracies about the Haitian community in Springfield, Ohio, or his blatantly antisemitic remarks about Jewish voters.
Trump wants all of us to focus on the circus, and on Saturday, both the ringmaster and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, brought that circus to their rallies.
At an event in North Carolina, Trump accused migrants of “attacking villages” throughout the Midwest. In Pennsylvania, Vance doubled down on those conspiracy theories. “I challenge you to go to Springfield, Ohio, which has been overwhelmed by 20,000 Haitians. Go to any community that has been overwhelmed by Kamala Harris’ illegal alien policies and tell me that these are stories made up by politicians,” Vance told supporters.
To set the record straight, no, “villages” aren’t being attacked by migrants and yes, politicians, like them, are making things up about Springfield, but that’s because Trump wants that to be the focus right now. It’s what he wants everyone talking about.
I know that may bend the mind; I mean, why on earth would a presidential candidate want to draw attention to his xenophobia, racism, antisemitism and misogyny? Well, of course, Trump is not a normal candidate. To him, all press is good press. All attention is good attention. To Trump, the only way to win is to own the spotlight no matter how harsh it is.
His theory goes a little like this: If we are all talking about his crazy and offensive comments, if we are talking about the circus, then we’re not talking about everything else.
Because there is a whole lot that he doesn’t want us to be talking about right now. He doesn’t want us to talk about Harris inching ahead in the polls after beating him like a drum on the debate stage. Like the new national poll from NBC News that shows Harris leading Trump 49% to 44% — while that result is within the margin of error, it shows a clear shift in Harris’ favor. Or the number in that same poll that shows her favorability rising more quickly than any politician since George W. Bush after 9/11. Or the one that shows voters increasingly see her as the candidate of change.
And he doesn’t want us to talk about how he’s too chicken to debate Harris again after she accepted an invitation for a rematch from CNN on Saturday.
Trump doesn’t want us to talk about how he’s too chicken to debate Harris again. He certainly doesn’t want us to talk about his dangerous and unpopular opposition to abortion rights and the preventable deaths we are learning about in Georgia. I mean, he literally posted this weekend, in all caps, telling women that if he wins, “YOU WILL NO LONGER BE THINKING ABOUT ABORTION.” Trump was apparently so pleased with that ridiculous statement that he repeated it verbatim on Saturday in North Carolina. Trump also doesn’t want us to talk about the overt effort from his supporters to tamper with the election if they don’t like the outcome. And that’s exactly what the Trump-friendly election board in Georgia did on Friday when they ordered the hand-counting of ballots — a move that is likely to cause chaos and delay the reporting of results in a critical state. And Trump definitely doesn’t want us to talk about his handpicked guy running for governor in North Carolina, Mark Robinson. You know, the guy who, according to CNN, called himself a “Black Nazi” on a porn site and who, according to The Washington Post, praised Mein Kampf on that same site. So yes, Trump wants attention but he wants it on his rhetoric, not his record. On his words, but not their consequences. Because the consequences are a town like Springfield getting torn apart, a Republican Party represented by guys like Robinson and a country where women die waiting for medical care. That’s what Trump really does not want us talking about. But as voters begin voting and Election Day gets closer and closer, that is where our focus should be.
Jen Psaki is the host of "The Briefing with Jen Psaki" airing Tuesdays through Fridays at 9 p.m. EST. She is the former White House press secretary for President Joe Biden.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW.
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