Coronavirus has forced the Trump campaign to abandon its plans for an avalanche of ads attacking former vice president Joe Biden, but Team Trump wants someone running those ads, and there’s growing frustration that America First Action, the main Trump-backing super PAC, isn’t doing it.
Politico cites interviews with “more than a half-dozen White House aides, campaign officials and other Trump allies,” but of course the actual senior Trump aides are unnamed. Other Republican attack specialists were willing to go on the record, though: “With attacks coming from all over, the simple question is: Where the hell is the president’s air cover?” asked former Swift Boat strategist Chris LaCivita.
LaCivita offered a measure for assessing America First Action’s success or failure: “There are only three words that exist in a super PAC’s role,” he told Politico, “and that’s attack, attack, attack.”
Trump may have to rise above the political fray—at least by Trumpian standards. That’s why he has a super PAC, another Republican operative suggested, saying: “In the midst of the current pandemic crisis, so that the president can focus on leading the nation and projecting an upbeat message of unity, it seems like the ideal time for his super PAC to be handling political messaging, and that messaging should be defining Joe Biden right now.”
Both America First Action and the Trump campaign have sent cease and desist letters to TV stations insisting they not run an ad by Democratic super PAC Priorities USA Action because it’s “false, misleading, and deceptive.” The ad consists almost entirely of Trump’s own words about coronavirus.