'Better looking than Harris': Will Trump's comments derail his own campaign?

By Jacob Paul (with Jon Sopel and Lewis Goodall)

Republicans are still backing Donald Trump on his policies, but are his provocative insults costing the presidential candidate support from within his own party?

In brief...

• Republican Senator and Trump ally Lindsey Graham said he still backs Trump on policy, but is concerned that Trump the "showman" could lose the Republicans the election.
• It comes after Trump said he is "better looking" than Kamala Harris during a key speech in Pennsylvania, an opportunity he could have used to challenge her on her economic policy.
• This is causing "profound frustration" among the Republicans and the Trump team, who are "worried about Trump going his own way on things", say The News Agents.

What’s the story?

Momentum may have shifted to the Democrats in recent weeks after Donald Trump’s poll lead slipped away, but plenty of Republicans still support his policies.

The problem is, some of these Republicans now fear that Trump’s provocative, showman, personality could spoil the whole thing.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told NBC’s Meet the Press: “His policies are good for America, and if you have a policy debate for president, he wins. “[But] Donald Trump, the private [citizen], the provocateur, the showman, may not win this election.”

What has Trump said?

His latest claim came during a key speech in the battleground state of Pennsylvania on the campaign trail, where Trump told crowds of Republicans he is “better looking than Harris”.

But there are countless examples of comments made by Trump that may have encouraged this sentiment from Graham. As Emily Maitlis previously noted, he is “throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what insult sticks”.

Lewis Goodall notes that Trump could have used the opportunity in Pennsylvania to challenge Harris on some of her newly unveiled economic policies.

And in a way, he did, calling her a “communist” and “comrade Kamala”, which Lewis said is not necessarily a “bad political message”. 

But that got “completely set aside” with Trump’s comments about Harris’ physical appearance, Lewis adds.

What’s the significance? 

Lewis says there is now a “profound frustration” in Republican circles and at the top of the Republican Party because of this kind of behaviour. 

“We all know that he can be effective in terms of, he can be surprising and funny. Sometimes people like that. 

“But the message - indiscipline in a period in which they are struggling to find a calibration to respond to the Harris nomination - is really costing them.”

According to Jon Sopel, Trump’s team has clocked on. 

He says: “Someone in the Trump campaign has clearly confiscated his phone or changed the code on it, because what you're seeing on Twitter now that Trump is very active, is that it's not him. 

“They are memes, they are slogans, they are little video clips. There's not him writing in caps lock, raging about this with spelling mistakes and grammar errors and all the rest of it.

It doesn't have any of the danger that Trump had last time.”

But they do not have any of Trump’s authenticity in either, Jon argues, which means we don’t get a feel for what he thinks on certain issues.

This shows “just how worried the campaign are about Trump going his own way on these things”, Jon adds.

Listen to The News Agents coverage from the Democratic Party National Convention in Chicago.

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