Trump takes on Harris, but nothing sounds as good as the classics

Yesterday’s rally was former President Donald J. Trump’s first since President Biden, an 81-year-old white man, withdrew and Vice President Kamala Harris, a 59-year-old Black woman, stepped down. How would Mr. Trump proceed?

His campaign tried to build confidence about the change, even though Ms. Harris had already made a strong start, raising $81 million in the first 24 hours and capturing the media’s attention.

Before Mr. Trump took the stage at Bojangles Coliseum, his spokesman, Steven Cheung, came out to the reporters’ pen to assure them that the Trump campaign was not, not at all, panicking about any of this. As he spoke, he stood with his back to the hockey arena wall — “You skinned your Zamboni? Call us” painted in large block letters on the concrete behind him — as two dozen reporters held recording equipment inches from his face. The Who’s “Pinball Wizard” blared as the press bounced questions off of him.

Was the Trump campaign nervous about how much money Ms. Harris had raised? “We’re happy with where we are right now.”

How does Mr. Trump feel now about being the old man in the race? “It doesn’t matter.”

What does Mr. Trump think of Ms. Harris framing her campaign as one about prosecutor versus criminal? “It doesn’t matter.”

And then Mr. Cheung got one that gave him pause. Earlier in the day, House Speaker Mike Johnson had warned fellow Republicans not to call Ms. Harris, the first woman, the first Asian American and the first black No. 2 in the White House, a “DEI” candidate (or a “diversity, equity and inclusion” candidate). Asked whether the campaign agreed that Republicans should not attack Ms. Harris on the basis of race or gender, Mr. Cheung replied, “Ah, I mean, we don’t have that. We don’t have that. So we don’t have that problem.”

He added: “I don’t know if it’s off limits, but it’s not something we’ve done. So it’s not even on our radar.”

“I was supposed to be nice,” the former president said as he took the stage. “They said something happened when I got shot. I became nice.” He was just warming up. “If you don’t mind,” he laughed, “I’m not going to be nice. Is that OK?” The arena, packed to the rafters, roared its approval.

And so the spectacle of the Charlotte rally looked: Mr. Trump trying to find — and tiptoeing toward — the line of acceptability in how to dismantle the competition.

The strategy he appears to have chosen, at least for now, is to portray Ms. Harris as a left-wing radical.

“Kamala Harris is the most liberal elected politician in American history,” he told the audience directly, a claim so patently false that he seemed to anticipate his listeners’ skepticism. “She’s more liberal than Bernie Sanders,” he said. “Can you believe that?”

“There’s never been such a crazy person in the White House,” Trump warned gravely.

Some of this did anger the audience, but when he’s looking for new material, Mr. Trump knows he can always fall back on the classics. “Kamala, you’re fired!” he shouted at one point, summoning the catchphrase from the reality show that revived his entertainment career 20 years ago. His supporters roared with recognition.

This was the Trump they knew and loved.

But what really got them going was his griping about immigration — the same issue he’s been harping on since 2015. By emphasizing that Ms. Harris was appointed by President Biden to work on the root causes of migration, Mr. Trump linked a new enemy to his oldest, most stirring issue. It was extraordinarily effective with the crowd.

Many were still trying to process the extraordinary events of the past few days.

Kim Johnson, a 58-year-old house cleaner from Belmont, N.C., said that when she heard Mr. Biden was leaving office, she, like many in the crowd that day, was suspicious of how things would turn out. She didn’t have a complete working theory, but she believed “this is their way of rigging the election.”

But she predicted that a new nemesis would only up Trump’s game, keep him sharp and make him a better campaigner. “I think it’s made us stronger,” she said. “I think people are going to be even more determined to get him into office.”