Trump channels Churchill in Time magazine cover kicking off his re-election campaign and says he DOESN’T need to reach beyond his base to win
- The president was photographed perched on top of the Resolute desk for the heroic cover photo
- He defended his unusual strategy of seeking to rile up his base through attacks on illegal immigration, Democrats, and the Russia probe
- Incumbents often focus energy on peeling away a slice of gettable centrist voters
- ‘I think my base is so strong, I’m not sure that I have to do that’
- Trump launched his campaign in Florida Tuesday night with attacks on Hillary Clinton
President Donald Trump tried his hand at a Churchillian pose, casting a confident gaze as he sat atop the Resolute desk for a Time magazine profile that came out Thursday where he promoted his base-driven political strategy.
The president is rejecting a strategy of trying to focus on reaching out to swing voters through calculated appeals that draw majority support.
Instead, he is doubling down on his plan to fire up his most loyal supporters with attacks on Democrats, the Russia probe, and would-be illegal immigrants.
‘I think my base is so strong, I’m not sure that I have to do that,’ Trump told the magazine in an Oval Office interview.
HEY BULLDOG: President Trump struck a Churchillian pose for a Time magazine cover profile
His words were backed up by his Tuesday night campaign launch, where he bashed ‘Crooked Hillary Clinton’ and the ‘phony dossier.; He said of Democrats: ‘They will strip Americans of their Constitutional rights while flooding the country with illegal immigrants in the hopes it will expand their political base and they’ll get votes someplace down the future. That’s what it’s about.’
Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale, who pushed back after March leaked polls showed Trump trailing in battleground states, described the strategy as ‘turnout, turnout, turnout.’
‘People all think you have to change people’s minds. You have to get people to show up that believe in you,’ he said.
Former campaign guru and chief White House strategist Steve Bannon described the mission as: ‘You have to get every f****** deplorable. Everybody’s got to show up.’
The piece casts Trump, whose Atlantic City casinos ended in bankruptcy, although he was able to use them as a financial springboard and made millions, as a gambler. ‘My whole life is a bet,’ he said in a quote that made it on the cover.
December 1941 Winston Churchill portrait by Yousuf Karsh
President Trump revved up his supporters at an Orlando rally
ROYAL TREATMENT: Other cover images weren’t as flattering
Some drew artistic comparisons between the cover images of the 2016 Person of the Year and a famous Time 1941 cover that featured Adolf Hitler
Time’s Hitler cover had photo features that some critics took to be similarities to the Trump photo from 2016
Trump during the interview this week had an aide fetch a letter he said Kim Jong-un wrote him
Some covers have poked fun at the president
One cover depicted the child separation crisis
The latest Gallup poll released Thursday has Trump disapproval at 55 percent, and Economic / YouGov poll has former Vice President Joe Biden leading him by 10 points, and a St. Petersburg Times poll has Trump and Biden tied in Florida.
In one odd detail of the interview, Trump had an aide fetch a hand-written birthday card he said North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un sent to him.
Trump’s campaign is planning a massive national campaign backed by the Republican National Committee, an organization Trump has now put firmly behind him, unlike in 2016.
Trump raised more money in the hours after his 2020 launch than his top opponents on the Democratic side raised the last fiscal quarter, the party chairwoman announced Wednesday.
Ronna McDaniel revealed in a tweet that Trump had ‘raised a record breaking $24.8M in less than 24 hours for his re-election’ following his Orlando kickoff.