CHRIS CRUCIAL: Donald Trump is barely campaigning 🥱

PLUS: Elon will interview Donald 🚀

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1. Donald Trump’s slooooow schedule

Vice President Kamala Harris and her newly-announced running mate Tim Walz kicked off a 5-day, 7-state tour on Tuesday night in Philadelphia.

Donald Trump, well, didn’t do much of anything — at least publicly — Tuesday. And, according to his public schedule, he only has one event — a rally in Bozeman, Montana — this week.

The Harris campaign took note of that fact:

And, predictably, the Trump campaign aggressively pushed back on the reporting:

This is sort of hard to fact check. Fundraisers are, generally speaking, private — meaning no media. Trump did do an interview (in the loosest sense of that word) with a YouTube streamer on Monday. As for other “events” and “rallies,” well, there aren’t any on his schedule. Which makes it unlikely that he is doing them.

So, it seems like the Harris hit is a pretty clean one. She (and Walz) are doing a slew of events over the next week. Trump, well, isn’t. (I will note: Harris has yet to sit for a media interview or even really take questions from the media.)

But, what about if we zoom out a bit? Has Trump had a packed schedule of campaign events over the last few months?

The answer is no. Check out this amazing breakdown done by the New York Times, which compares Trump’s events to those of President Joe Biden:

Kind of remarkable, right? As we now know, Biden was clearly struggling with the limitations imposed by his advanced age during those months. And yet — in May and July — Biden did FAR more campaign events than Trump did. It’s not even close!

This is not just a general election thing either. Trump’s schedule during the Republican primary was remarkably light. Here’s the Associated Press from September 2023:

Their rivals are busy answering voters’ questions at town halls across South Carolina, glad-handing with business owners in New Hampshire and grinding to hit every one of Iowa’s 99 counties.

But the front-runners for their party’s nomination, former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, are barely campaigning in crucial early-voting states as the primary season enters the fall rush.

Biden is attending a union parade in Philadelphia on Monday. But he has held just one campaign rally in the four-plus months since he formally launched his 2024 reelection bid. Trump, who complained of his Biden’s “basement strategy” in 2020, has not campaigned for three weeks now, last appearing at the Iowa State Fair on Aug. 12.

In fact, the light scheduling of Trump isn’t even unique to this campaign. Consider the reporting around how he spent his days in the White House. Here’s Axios from February 2019:

What the schedules show: Trump, an early riser, usually spends the first 5 hours of the day in Executive Time. Each day's schedule places Trump in "Location: Oval Office" from 8 to 11 a.m.

But Trump, who often wakes before 6 a.m., is never in the Oval during those hours, according to six sources with direct knowledge.

Instead, he spends his mornings in the residence, watching TV, reading the papers, and responding to what he sees and reads by phoning aides, members of Congress, friends, administration officials and informal advisers.

There’s a pattern here, right?

Trump, of course, insists that he is always working. Here’s how he responded when the whole “executive time” story broke:

“The media was able to get my work schedule, something very easy to do, but it should have been reported as a positive, not negative. When the term Executive Time is used, I am generally working, not relaxing. In fact, I probably work more hours than almost any past President…”

In fact, Trump is sort of obsessed with making sure you know how hard he works. He literally talks about it all the time. Which feels a little like overcompensation.

Now the counterargument to all of this is that whatever Trump is doing is working. He got elected president — when no one thought he could — in 2016. He walked to the Republican nomination in 2024. And, at the moment, he’s in a coin-flip race with Kamala Harris for the White House.

So, maybe whatever Trump is doing is working. But what is clearly true is he just isn’t doing all that much.

2. Elon will interview Trump

The last time Elon Musk interviewed a presidential candidate, it didn’t work out super well.

But, that travashamockery didn’t phase Donald Trump!

The Trump interview completes — or further cements — a very public evolution for one of the richest men in the world.

In 2020, Musk said he preferred Joe Biden to Trump. But, Musk’s politics have grown far more Trump-y — especially since he bought Twitter, which he renamed X, in October 2022.

Musk has repeatedly shared memes and viral videos (some of which carry false information) organized around this basic idea: Woke-ism is run amok in the United States.

Following the assassination attempt against Trump, Musk wrote on X: “I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery.”

The endorsement was in the works before the assassination, it’s worth noting. Read this Washington Post piece on that.

Trump, for his part, has hedged his stump speech — which long included a riff against electric vehicles — to acknowledge that Musk is now a supporter.

“And I'm for electric cars,” said Trump at a rally in Georgia this past weekend. “I have to be, you know, because Elon endorsed me very strongly, Elon. So I have no choice.”

This interview will be must-see TV. And you can be sure I will get the transcript. And bring you the lines you need to see.

3. Can Tim Walz help Democrats in the Midwest?

There’s a lot of debate today as to whether there is any evidence that Tim Walz can help Vice President Kamala Harris win among Midwestern voters.

The best way — or at least one way — to figure that out is to look at how Walz did when he ran for governor in 2022. And compare it to how Joe Biden did when he ran in 2020.

This chart — via the Washington Post — is terrific on that front:

Walz clearly did better than Biden in his old southern Minnesota congressional district. And in the eastern suburbs of the Twin Cities. Biden did better in the entire western (and more rural) part of the state.

Biden won Minnesota by 7 points over Trump in 2020. Walz won a 2nd term two years later by the same margin.

Not a huge difference!

Steve Kornacki, resident numbers nerd (and great guy) at NBC, drew the same conclusion:

Now, this does not mean that Walz as the vice presidential nominee can’t over-perform past Democratic nominees among blue collar voters. It simply means he has not done so in his past races.

NOTABLE QUOTABLE

“We’re white guys from the Midwest.” — Ohio Sen. JD Vance when asked whether he and newly-minted Democratic VP pick Tim Walz have any similarities

ONE GOOD CHART

We are on a very long run of economic pessimism, according to Gallup. In July, 70% of Americans said they believed the “economic conditions” in the country were getting worse.  Writes Gallup of the results: “While down from the recent peak of 85% in June 2022, the 70% of Americans who currently believe the economy is getting worse remains among the highest rates in Gallup's trend since 1992.”

SONG OF THE DAY

In the fall, American Football, a great band, is releasing an album of artists covering their catalogue. The first song from that collection is now out. It’s Sam Beam (aka Iron & Wine) covering “Never Meant.” (You can listen to the American Football original here.)

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