Staff Reports
Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has thrust himself into the whirlwind of social media drama surrounding former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. While Trump was busy poking fun at Harris for her lackluster crowds, McCarthy advised him to shift gears and focus on dissecting her dubious political record instead. After all, questioning the size of her fan club might be a distraction from the real issues at hand.
Trump recently took to Truth Social to assert that Harris relied on artificial intelligence to warp perceptions of her popularity, claiming she appeared to have zero supporters waiting as she exited Air Force Two. This audacious assertion prompted McCarthy to chime in with a more strategic angle. He posited that rather than scrutinizing crowd sizes, Trump should direct his fire toward Harris’s past decisions as attorney general and her dismal handling of the border crisis. Clearly, McCarthy believes that grilling Harris on her policies is a far more effective strategy than merely mocking her fan base.
Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has told Trump to stop focusing on the large crowds attending Harris rallies, and instead attack her policies.https://t.co/oSIziZJ7bv
— HuffPost (@HuffPost) August 12, 2024
In a typically McCarthy-esque fashion, he suggested to Trump that the real debate should center around Harris’s record, specifically her numerous policy about-faces. He highlighted her stunningly inconsistent positions, from her once unyielding stance against fracking to her supposed commitment to border security. McCarthy’s jest of Harris as the “perfect” candidate to run against resonates with the notion that her frequent flip-flopping makes her vulnerable. It begs the question if she knows which end is up most days.
Critics, including Tim Carney from the Washington Examiner, echoed McCarthy’s views and even called Trump’s social media jabs a gift to Harris. Trump’s comments were labeled as a blunder that could bolster the Biden administration’s campaign. Is there no end to the unintentional assists that Trump seems to serve up on social media? The irony here is that poking fun at Harris’s crowd could very well detract from the pressing matters surrounding inflation and the border that conservatives hope to highlight in the coming election.
In the latest rally performance, the Vice President commanded an airport hangar filled to the brim with supporters in Michigan, quickly proving Trump wrong when he suggested that nobody was waiting for her. Additionally, the Harris campaign countered Trump’s claim by asserting the photo was taken directly from their promotional material with no assistance from AI. Alas, technology may not have been the culprit after all—just plain old marketing savvy.
Trump’s past concerns over the implications of AI only heighten the absurdity of the political theater unfolding. As he reminisces about AI-generated ads touting him, one wonders if his comments about Harris’s crowd sizes reflect a deeper struggle to adapt to the world of modern campaigning. With seasoned strategists like McCarthy urging for a more polished approach, the proverbial ball now sits squarely in Trump’s court.
