Trump’s New Campaign Strategy Just Went Up in Flames

Donald Trump was scheduled to give remarks on economic policy at a small messaging event in Asheville, North Carolina, on Wednesday—but the former president couldn’t help but venture way, way off topic as his speech devolved into angry ad hominem attacks against Kamala Harris, mixed into his own typical word salad.

The pared-down speaking event is part of the Trump campaign’s new strategy to keep its candidate on topic, by having him speak to smaller crowds about only one thing at a time. Trump didn’t seem committed to this idea for even one event.

“This isn’t a rally, but this is a different kind of a thing. Today we’re going to talk about one subject,” Trump said. “They say it’s the most important subject, I’m not sure it is. But they say it’s the most important—inflation is the most important, but that’s part of economy.”

When trying to speak about the vice president’s not-yet-released economic plan and her influence on the U.S. economy, Trump veered off-script to complain about her laughing. “For nearly four years Kamala has crackled as the American economy has burned,” Trump said.

“What happened to her laugh? I haven’t heard that laugh in about a week. That’s why they keep her off the stage. That’s why she’s disappeared. That’s the laugh of a crazy person, I will tell you if you haven’t noticed—it’s crazy,” Trump said. The crowd seemed to respond to Trump’s detour into bashing Harris, and so he happily repeated the line. “She’s crazy!”

“Her laugh is career-threatening,” Trump said.

The Republican nominee readily abandoned his talking points, instead opting to play to his audience of roughly 2,500 fans, fantasizing about firing his opponent.

“Kamala! You’re fired!” he screamed, pointing forcefully as the crowd cheered. “Get outta here! Go! Get outta here!”

“Right?” he asked someone in the front row. He pantomimed again as the room whistled and cheered. “Get her out,” Trump growled. “Boom.”

Overall, Trump couldn’t manage to stay on focus, even though his spokespeople have lauded the so-called “discipline” of his campaign. He patted himself on the back for his train-wreck interview with Elon Musk, proudly admitted he didn’t understand what a “net zero” carbon emissions policy meant or how wind energy works, and accused Europe of tending to be a “little bit woke.” He grinned as he remarked that was now “changing,” portraying a grotesque attitude amid deadly anti-immigrant riots that have spread across the U.K.

Trump made his regular detours into racist fearmongering about immigrants, pretending to recount—without so many details—a violent crime done by “a gentleman from a certain country, I won’t mention—happened to be in South America.”

The former president tried to list other violent crimes perpetrated by people he called “the Kamala migrants,” but couldn’t remember a single detail. It’s almost as if that wasn’t what he was meant to be speaking about in the first place.

“There were four or five other situations over the last couple of days. Rape and murder. Rape and beating. Rape and something else. And sometimes just immediate killing. These people are brutal,” Trump cried.

Trump then attempted to tie migrants back into the main subject of his speech, blaming them for basically every economic problem.

Overall, Trump delivered all the classics, despite the fact that his campaign was pretty much begging him not to.