Consider the message received: Last week, Trump campaign concerns about a key Trump super PAC falling down on the job leaked out. That job was “attack, attack, attack”—and America First is following orders, with a $10 million ad buy attacking former Vice President Joe Biden in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
The Trump campaign isn’t allowed to coordinate directly with America First, due to campaign finance laws. But campaign officials sure can drop some heavy hints. “We cannot let Biden hide in the shadows,” campaign manager Brad Parscale reportedly told a group of surrogates this week. “We need to pick up the pace on him.”
The reason the Trump campaign needs help from its super PAC is not financial. It’s that Trump himself is supposed to be rising above the political fray and acting presidential during the coronavirus crisis. And with Democratic super PACs hitting Trump on his lack of leadership on the coronavirus while the Trump campaign’s plan to attack and negatively define Biden is on hold, the need was all the greater.
And how lucky that a campaign can so effectively give strategy instructions to a super PAC without illegal coordination.