The video of former President Donald Trump falling to the ground and then standing up under a pile of Secret Service agents with blood running down his cheek, raising his fist in the air and shouting “fight, fight, fight” is one of the most compelling clips in modern American political history.
Captured moments after he was shot in the ear by a would-be assassin in June, it embodies Trump’s carefully crafted narrative that he is strong enough to take on any enemy, foreign or domestic, on behalf of his “Make America Great Again” agenda. A freeze-frame has appeared on merchandise and become iconic among his supporters.
And yet the film sits idle on a shelf, unused until now in the final stages of his campaign to return to the Oval Office. His advisers refuse to publicly discuss whether his closing ads will include clips of the assassination attempt, but they are well aware that they have a powerful video on their hands.
A shift to the personal narrative could distract from the substantive issues that Trump aides believe give their candidate an edge over his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris. Polls show a close race in seven swing states that will determine the winner of the Nov. 5 election, and Trump is expected to make his final plea to voters at a rally Sunday at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
The burning question is whether Trump will ultimately break his own mold and stay on message.
“Kamala has failed us for the past four years, and only President Donald J. Trump can solve the problems facing our country,” Danielle Alvarez, a senior adviser to Trump’s campaign, said in a statement from the closing arguments. “That includes inflation. That includes the border. That includes the chaos we’re seeing at home and abroad.”
A FactsTimes News survey of registered voters this month showed the race as close, 48% to 48% nationally. That was the high for Trump in eight polls conducted since June 2023 — the first six against President Joe Biden, who dropped out of the race in July, and a 1-point drop for Harris since September.
Trump scored higher among voters on the three “I”s his campaign has focused on — immigration, inflation and Israel — while voters rated Harris higher on a range of issues and characteristics, including handling abortion and health care and being “competent and effective.”
While most voters don’t vote on foreign policy, Trump blames Biden — and by extension Harris — for the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
“The strength of our nation has been squandered under Harris’ time in the White House,” a Trump campaign adviser said. “Iran is richer and is funding chaos and terror in the Middle East. Ukraine and Russia are still at war, and China is brazener than ever. Harris has broken our position on the world stage. President Trump will fix this by using strong diplomatic, military and trade policies to restore peace and stability.”
Trump has consistently highlighted his differences with Harris on those three major issues during his campaign rallies, and has leaned on his promise to impose tariffs on foreign competitors to bolster the U.S. economy — an idea that many economists say would raise prices for American consumers.
“With your vote in this election, I will end inflation. I will stop the invasion of criminals into our country, and I will, as your president, bring back the American dream,” Trump told a crowd in North Carolina on Tuesday. “We are going to bring it back. Our country is being crippled and destroyed by Kamala Harris. But it doesn’t have to be this way.”
Campaign aides celebrated Trump’s recent performance in an at times testy interview at the Economic Club of Chicago, where he defended his support for tariffs and accused the Biden administration of “spending money like drunken sailors.” The economy is a particularly natural place where Trump’s team feels he, as a longtime business owner, is strongly positioned to defend his agenda, according to one campaign adviser.
But there’s a tension between the focus Trump’s campaign has kept on those issues and his desire to venture into other territory. As Election Day approaches, he’s taken long detours away from the substance — ramping up personal attacks on Harris and other Democrats, peppering his speeches with profanity and musing on off-topic topics like the size of the late golf legend Arnold Palmer’s genitals.
On Tuesday, he suggested, without evidence, that Harris was campaigning under the influence.
“Is she drinking? Is she doing drugs?” he said. “I don’t know.”
At the same time, voters are seeing a new ad produced by Trump’s campaign team that pits Harris against Biden, the president of a country that most voters believe is headed in the wrong direction. It uses video footage of Harris on the television show “The View” saying that “there’s nothing that comes to mind” when asked what she would have done differently than Biden.
“Nothing will change with Kamala,” a narrator says. “More weakness. More war. More welfare for illegals. And more taxes. Only President Trump has cut taxes for the middle class, and only President Trump will do it again.”
Brad Todd, a Republican strategist who does not work for Trump, said the ad “does a great job of channeling the larger current that could push him over the edge” by arguing that “America is on the wrong track and you can’t keep the same people in power.”
The question, Todd said, “is whether he can limit his rallies to a message that is so conventional” or whether he is simply “energizing people who are already voting for him” with red-meat rhetoric.