WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump entered the Rose Garden on Tuesday and spoke for six minutes about a new U.S. policy toward China before resorting to a different set of comments for the remainder of his hour-long speech he attacked in largely to his alleged electoral opponent, Joe Biden.
The president’s comments on China come from White House officials, and the second set of a laptop supplied by Trump’s re-election campaign is part of an attempt to separate the wording of Trump’s political comments from those of his government. , a practice that follows a long tradition of presidents trying to draw a line between campaign and official affairs while seeking a second term.
On Tuesday, that effort was nearly wiped out by the president, whose delivery sometimes seemed more geared toward a multitude of raucous protests.
And while each headline somehow blurs that line between the official and the political, Trump distinguishes himself from his predecessors in that, his aides say, he doesn’t even see a line.
“In the past, you could say: ‘Here is the President in official capacity’ and ‘Here is the President in campaign capacity’, but Trump is at full speed ahead at all times and there is no discernible difference between the two ” said the former Trump White House official. “His eye is always focused on targeting his political opponents no matter what day of the week it is.”
The result is what unfolded at the Rose Garden on Tuesday: a 52-minute speech combining two sets of comments written on two separate devices during which Trump attacked the alleged Democratic candidate by name about 30 times and asked him a question. Rhetoric about Biden’s son: “Where’s Hunter?” has become a rallying cry for supporters of his reelection campaign.
While his predecessors criticized his opposition during official comments and spoke obediently about the name of his reelection candidate, Trump has for months battled his political rivals from anywhere and everywhere. He has used the same rhetoric at a campaign rally, during a ceremony in the East Room, or at a foreign capital gathering with a world leader both at home and abroad.
And now, with his ability to hold rallies during the coronavirus pandemic, he seems even more inclined to use White House grounds in ways that past presidents have carefully avoided.
“Donald Trump is unwilling to change his tone and stop referring to his opponents,” said a White House official. “It has been for years. That’s not going anywhere. “
The White House has taken some steps to keep government business separate from political affairs. For example, White House speechwriters are supposed to have separate laptops for political and official addresses, according to a White House official.
The political parts of Trump’s speech in the Rose Garden on Tuesday were not produced using official resources such as government laptops, the official said.
But unlike his two most recent predecessors during his reelection offers, Trump has not hired a separate campaign press secretary to travel on Air Force One to answer journalists’ questions about campaign issues during political travel. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who started in April, came directly from the Trump campaign. And a White House spokesman, Hogan Gidley, recently went on the campaign trail to fulfill his role as a national spokesperson.
Similarly, the Trump White House has not installed a separate phone on the presidential plane, for Trump to use for campaign phone calls. Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama had separate press secretaries and telephones.
Trump’s aides are discussing whether White House communications director Alyssa Farah will serve as press secretary during the Republican National Convention next month in Jacksonville, Florida, so McEnany can deliver a speech there in a personal capacity.
McEnany would speak as a “Republican strategist,” according to a White House official.
McEnany and Farah are among the commissioned officers in the White House who are legally allowed to participate in some political service or workplace activity, and while they may speak at campaign events or fundraising in a personal capacity, they are not they are allowed to raise money.
The Trump campaign declined to comment.
Trump demonstrated that he would take a different political tactic than his predecessors the moment he entered the White House: he is the first president to present documents for reelection on the day he took office.
He held a campaign rally less than a month later.
Presidents also tend to keep a political ally close during a reelection campaign. Bush had his top campaign strategist, Karl Rove, in the White House. Obama brought his 2008 campaign manager, David Plouffe, to the White House as he prepared for reelection. And Trump has his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who is seen by the president’s allies as the de facto 2020 campaign manager, in the west wing.
Kushner acts as the primary conduit between the White House and the reelection campaign, including appearing at briefings at Virginia headquarters in his official capacity, and is involved in all key decisions for the reelection effort, including shaking this week. up. Bill Stepien was elevated to campaign manager, demoting Brad Parscale to senior advisor in charge of digital strategy. Parscale had been in the lead role for over two years.
There are some clear rules about the President’s political actions on the White House grounds: For example, you cannot make fundraising calls from the Oval Office. But presidents are guided primarily by an unwritten tradition-based code that can be easily extended by someone who enjoys pushing institutional boundaries, as Trump does.
“Most presidents more or less respect the fact that the Rose Garden and the White House, that’s a sacred space, that’s something that belongs to all of us, and most presidents avoid being too partisan at use those spaces, “presidential historian Michael Beschloss said Wednesday. in MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” when asked about Trump’s appearance in the Rose Garden the day before.
“Instead, we sat down yesterday through this 50-minute tirade that included personal attacks on Joe Biden’s family and things that are much more suited to a convention hall or sports stadium,” Beschloss said. “That is somewhat different from what we have seen before. Donald Trump crossed yesterday what I think is a very important line. “
The Trump White House adopted stricter guidelines to separate political and official business after the 2018 midterm elections, according to officials. Some officials had been accused during the midterm elections of violating the Hatch Act, which prohibits administration officials, except the President and Vice President, from participating in certain political activities.
The White House attorney’s office now reviews all speeches from the president’s aides to ensure they comply with the Hatch Act, a senior official said.
The official said that the president’s political events and trips are billed to the reelection campaign or to the Republican National Committee, as has been the case with his predecessors.
If any Republican official linked to the reelection effort travels on Air Force One, the cost of their trip is supposed to be reimbursed to the Treasury Department, according to FEC data. And if parts of a presidential trip are political and others are campaign related, travel expenses are supposed to be divided according to an established formula.
Sometimes that formula could be recalculated considering the president was overly political in comments that the White House attorney’s office had approved as officers, said Ian Bassin, who was an associate attorney at the Obama White House.
“This is where the difference between a president who stays on the script and a president who doesn’t matter,” Bassin said. “If you go out to a manufacturing plant and say you re-elect me and not my opponent, taxpayers are paying for your campaign.”
Since March, Trump has traveled to the battlefield states a dozen times in his official capacity. It is one of the tenure advantages that presidents strategically use to implement official policies during their reelection campaigns. But, here too, Trump has pushed traditional boundaries by criticizing Biden on almost all of these trips.
Last month at an official event in Phoenix, Trump took the stage before several thousand followers who had been singing “Four More Years!” and warned that “violence and chaos” will reign “if a guy like Joe Biden comes in.”
The president’s taxpayer-funded event began with warm-up speeches from his son Donald Trump Jr. and Trump campaign fundraising chief Kimberly Guilfoyle, who also mocked Biden.
“The rules are very fuzzy. Literally calls have been made for decades to clarify them, ”said Adav Noti, a former associate attorney general for the Federal Election Commission and chief of staff for the Campaign Legal Center.
“Previous presidents have been careful to err on the side of caution and clearly demarcate their campaign activity from the activity of the incumbent,” Noti added. “This administration has not been wrong on the precautionary side.”
