Trump on Cruise Control Before Convention

The candidate who used to routinely shoot himself in the foot has somehow managed to keep calm.

Former President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump raises a fist during a rally in Doral, Florida, on July 9, 2024. (Photo by Giorgio Viera / AFP via Getty Images)

WHEN DONALD TRUMP PLANNED HIS RALLY this past week at his golf course near Miami, it was with specific messaging in mind.

The event had been conceived of as a way to stick the proverbial middle finger up at the justice system. Trump would appear alongside a crowd of Cuban Americans, some of his most loyal followers, where he would portray himself (like them) as a victim of state-sponsored political persecution. The timing, too, was quite specific. He would be speaking just two days before he was set to be sentenced in his hush-money case, which—when the rally was being planned—felt like it would be a seismic campaign moment.

But then things changed. Dramatically.

Between the planning of the rally and the rally itself, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump is “presumptively immune” from prosecution for official acts he took as president. His legal team used that ruling to demand a reconsideration of the 34-count guilty verdict he had received in the hush-money case. The judge agreed to entertain motions on the question and postponed his sentencing hearing to September.

That wasn’t the only massive wrinkle.

Just days prior to his hearing being delayed, Joe Biden’s candidacy imploded on the debate stage. Suddenly, the Trump campaign’s intention to strike a tone of defiance was replaced by a desire to say nothing at all.

They didn’t cancel the Florida rally. Instead, they turned it into a festive affair. Speaking at the tenth hole of his Doral golf course, Trump spent little time railing about his criminal troubles. He swaggered, challenging Biden to another debate and a golfing competition, and he reveled in the president’s troubles.

“Our victory was so absolute that Joe’s own party now wants him to throw in the towel and surrender the presidency after a single ninety-minute performance,” Trump said.

The radical shift in the tone of the Doral rally from what was planned in June to what actually happened in July is a microcosm of the changes the Trump campaign has been making since the debate. The ex-president’s inflammatory rhetoric is still there, though the really unhinged stuff is often dumped on Truth Social, where only the most rabid fans see it. But the nuttiness is balanced by a more upbeat attitude. His desire to be at the center of the news cycle has been overwhelmed, for now, by his team’s belief that it is best for him to essentially disappear from the campaign trail. Making news, the thinking goes, would interfere with the drumbeat of coverage of Biden’s implosion.

A politician who has spent the past eight years largely in a defensive crouch, or at the center of chaos, or taking incoming from members of his own party, has watched as, all of a sudden, all of his woes are visited upon his opponent. Within the Trump operation, the concerns now are whether the former president’s luck can continue and if he will remain disciplined enough (grading on a Trump curve, mind you) not to get in his own way.

“We just hope he doesn’t blow it,” said one Trump confidant. “He’ll never admit it, but Trump is thinking the same thing.”

The changes to the Trump operation have been both tactical and strategic. Before the debate, there was chatter that the former president might name a running mate ahead of or shortly after his sentencing. That talk ended the minute the debate did. And it now appears likely that he will make the announcement at his Saturday rally in Pennsylvania or wait until the last minute, Monday, when the Republican National Convention officially begins.

Trump has been golfing daily (he hit the fairways last weekend at his New Jersey club with Bryson DeChambeau). And his campaign, already confident of its chances long before the debate, now thinks the electoral map has shifted even more in its favor. Polls indicate that Trump could be competitive in blue states like Virginia, Minnesota, New Jersey, and New Mexico, though Democrats continue to scoff at the mere suggestion that those states could flip.

“Donald Trump was well on his way to a 320-electoral-vote win,” Chris LaCivita, campaign co-manager, told the Atlantic. “That’s pre-debate.”

The past nine years have yielded countless reports of Trump pivoting or becoming more disciplined and politically astute. Most of them haven’t aged well.

But what’s different now, his advisers insist, is that he can actually—and accurately—argue he’s winning. He never led Biden in 2020 polls. In 2016, Clinton was ahead of Trump at this point in the campaign.

Trump also has the added motivation of having lost the presidency, even if he won’t admit it was legitimate.

“He’s had four years to think about this moment, and he’s not gonna screw it up,” said one adviser.

But it’s not just a thirst for redemption driving Trump. In candid moments, he has acknowledged to others that he knows he has to win the presidency because it’s the only way to shut down the Department of Justice’s criminal cases against him in Washington and in South Florida. That is, Trump believes if he doesn’t win the White House, he could wind up in the Big House. And he has adjusted accordingly.

Rep. Mike Waltz, a Florida Republican who flew to the Doral rally with other members of the state delegation and spent time with Trump, said it was “remarkable” to see how calm the candidate is.

Waltz co-chaired the Republican National Convention’s platform committee and said Trump personally edited the platform document twice and made sure it was written in a more colloquial style (it sounds like one of his speeches, the Washington Post noted). This year’s document differs markedly from the previous platform (which dates from 2016 because the party decided not to adopt a platform in 2020). Its length was reduced from 66 pages to 16, and the prior platform’s opposition to gay marriage was eliminated. It also, as Joe Perticone notes in Press Pass today, deemphasizes abortion, a big issue for Trump, who realizes it’s a general-election drag for Republicans. And it includes his call for mass deportations of illegal immigrants, a popular issue according to polls, even with Hispanic voters. When Trump mentioned the idea at his Tuesday rally, the heavily Hispanic crowd applauded.

Even before the debate, the Trump campaign began to target more of its messaging Vice President Kamala Harris rather than Biden. As Democrats called for Biden to step aside in the week after the debate, the Trump campaign initially believed Biden wouldn’t be forced out. Privately, some are wondering if that’s still an accurate read on the situation.

In his new campaign mode, Trump plays political pundit as well, and on Tuesday, he made sure to shade Harris and Biden in a two-for-one hit.

“You have to give him credit for one brilliant decision—probably the smartest decision he’s ever made: He picked Kamala Harris as his vice president,” Trump said as the crowd booed her name.

“No,” Trump said, “It was brilliant because it was an insurance policy, maybe the best insurance policy I’ve ever seen. If Joe had picked someone even halfway competent, they would have bounced him from his office years ago.”