Flustered Trump still has no answer to Kamala Harris’s campaign

Analysis: John Bowden watches as Donald Trump rambles about the cost of living and the economy from a golf club that he owns

Donald Trump summoned reporters to one of his properties for the second time in as many weeks to deliver a campaign message – but they would be hard-pressed to find something new or interesting to write about.

He spoke for roughly 40 minutes before taking questions at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf resort. His lengthy diatribe touched on Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, and a wide range of other issues — trucks, domestic energy policy, China and the wars in Gaza and Ukraine — all while flanked by two tables covered in groceries including Cheerios, a pack of quickly-warming raw bacon, and tins of coffee.

It was a spectacle that was clearly focused by his campaign to provide a platform for the GOP contender to attack Harris over economic issues, particularly inflation and the cost of consumer goods.

However, the lack of focus led to Thursday night’s event dragging on. In his first question, he was asked about Israel and his communications with Benjamin Netanyahu, rather than the economy.

Questions were largely softballs and teed up the ex-president to launch attacks at Harris and set out a plan for his second-term agenda. But the president didn’t offer much of a vision for the future or how he would tackle the issues. Instead, he opted to look to the past to talk about the conditions when he was in the White House.

Donald Trump delivered meandering, largely unfocused remarks generally on the issue of the economy (though not entirely) at his Bedminster, New Jersey, resort on Thursday (AP)

Journalists failed to ask about newly-uncovered remarks from JD Vance, his running mate, agreeing with a podcast host’s assertion that “the whole purpose” of post-menopausal women is to assist with child-rearing.

“You’ve spoken very passionately about how God saved your life. And I’m wondering, have you put much thought into why God saved your life? As in, for what purpose has he been shielding you?” one reporter, veering closely towards cheerleading, asked Trump.

The ex-president responded by riffing about his teleprompter and a chart displayed behind him at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where he was nearly assassinated in July, before quipping: “Yeah, God has something to do with it. It’s, it’s a miracle, and God had something to do with it. And maybe it’s [because] we want to save the world.”

One change of pace for Trump appeared to be his apparent newfound acceptance that Harris will be his opponent. While he derided the pressure placed on Joe Biden to exit the 2024 race as a “coup”, there was no repeat of his past suggestion that Biden would appear at the upcoming Democratic National Convention to attempt to “take back” his party’s nomination.

Trump also attempted to back away from his remarks in support of Elon Musk firing striking workers, though he vaguely suggested he wanted workers to accept wages that would allow companies to make profits.

More than anything else, this was a rehashing of the same flustered response to Harris’s sudden recovery in the polls: none of his criticism of her or Tim Walz, her running mate, was any different from what Republicans have been saying for weeks.

reporter asks Trump if he's reflected on why god saved his life. Trump says maybe god wants him to save the world. pic.twitter.com/VhDuqSq5eR

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 15, 2024

Perhaps the clearest sign of that was Trump’s ongoing inability to pronounce Harris’s name — “Kamala”, he repeated several times, with different pronunciations at different moments during his remarks. He also claimed that people did not know Harris’s last name: “It’s Harris,” he informed reporters at his presser.

Harris’s campaign, meanwhile, had been busy hours before Trump even took the microphone.

“TODAY: Donald Trump To Ramble Incoherently and Spread Dangerous Lies in Public, but at Different Home,” the vice-president’s campaign declared in a news release.

It then presciently advised: “Tune in for the same old thing.”