Trump’s attacks haven’t changed since 2016. Democrats are trying a new defense.

It didn’t take long for former President Donald Trump to return to his well-worn playbook of resorting to attacks based on race and gender — familiar tactics he has used against political rivals, including in his 2016 campaign against Hillary Clinton.

But it’s not 2016 anymore, and Democrats assert that the lessons learned from Trump’s campaign eight years ago guide their strategy now: Respond aggressively, use his attacks to bolster the campaign’s message and don’t let them distract from the issues.

That thinking guided their response to Trump’s interview at the National Association of Black Journalists conference in Chicago on Wednesday, where he questioned Vice President Kamala Harris’ Black ancestry and suggested she was chosen for the job only as a “DEI hire.”

Harris was quick to counter: On Wednesday night, she dismissed Trump’s attacks as “divisiveness” and the “same old show,” in what Democrats and campaign allies pointed out was the new framework for the party’s strategy.

Her remarks followed a statement from her campaign that notably didn’t mention the specific examples of the attacks Trump directed at Harris, but instead decried his “hostility,” “personal attacks” and “insults” — “a taste of the chaos and division that has been a hallmark of Trump’s MAGA rallies this entire campaign.” It offered a preview of how Harris’ team might manage Trump attacks in the weeks and months ahead, as they work to define their candidate and her policy positions on a truncated timeline.

“You heard it very, very well from the vice president in her speech [Wednesday night]. She talked about it, she acknowledged it, she called it out for what it is, which is divisive,” said Christina Reynolds, the senior vice president of communications at Emily’s List who worked on Clinton’s 2016 campaign. “But she called it out, and then she used it to pivot to what it signifies. ‘He wants to take us back, I want to move us forward.’ And she talked about issues, and she talked about her vision. We can do both, and she proved it last night.”

Trump’s attacks have proven to be effective in the past at distracting and sucking up the political oxygen, often forcing his opponents to spend time on the defense instead of on the issues. This has been particularly true for women candidates and even more challenging for Harris, who faces attacks about her gender but also her identity as an Indian American woman and a Black woman. Earlier this week, for instance, Trump also defended running mate JD Vance’s description of Harris as a “childless cat lady.”

At the same time, the shake-up in the presidential race and Trump’s ensuing return to race- and gender-based attacks have left Republicans working to contain the fallout as they try to keep their party and its leader focused on the issues — an even more important challenge in a country that looks much different than eight years ago.

Democratic strategist Michael Trujillo, who worked on Clinton’s 2008 campaign, said Harris, having grown up a biracial child in Oakland, California, is prepared for this moment in a way Clinton wasn’t.

“Her entire life has prepared her for this moment, which might have not been true for Hillary or any other candidate,” he said. “And so I think her team is going to reflect Harris’ instincts on how to deal with this as well. And if it’s anything like we’ve seen in the last 10 days, Kamala has pretty good instincts on how to deal with stuff.”

Part of Harris allies’ strategy was on full display on Thursday, when more than two dozen women leaders sent a letter to media organizations, urging “equitable” reporting on Harris and a “commitment to being anti-racist and anti-sexist in your coverage of her” — standards Democrats say weren’t always applied in the media’s coverage of Clinton’s last run for the White House. Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center Action Fund, said news organizations can’t become numb to Trump’s rhetoric.

“It’s not enough to just treat this as a normal idea just because it is expected from Trump,” she said in an interview. “We have seen some media outlets in real time say, ‘Oh these are harsh comments’ or ‘these are tough comments.’ But you also have to name them as to what they are — be clear that he is resorting to racist and sexist tropes.”

Reynolds, who was the deputy communications director for Clinton’s campaign, said reporters would use words like “shrill” or talk about likability in reporting about the candidate.

“I would watch and reporters would talk about, ‘Oh, there goes Hillary shouting at us again,’” she said. “Are we still doing that to women candidates? Sure. We saw that in 2019 during the primary, but are people pushing back on it? Yes. Are people pointing it out? And is more of the media aware that sometimes these are code words for ‘not what we’re used to electing?’ I think they are.”

Trump appears to be doubling down on this line of attack against Harris. On Thursday, he shared a post on Truth Social in which his ally Laura Loomer argued that because Harris’ birth certificate does not say the word “Black” — only that her father is Jamaican — the vice president therefore “is NOT black and never has been.” The former president also posted to the social media site a picture of a young Harris in a sari wearing a bindi.

“Thank you Kamala for the nice picture you sent from many years ago!” Trump wrote in a post accompanying the picture. “Your warmth, friendship, and love of your Indian Heritage are very much appreciated.”

Republicans, like their Democratic counterparts, appear reluctant to return to the days of 2016 when every controversial Trump remark set off a media firestorm.

“How many times have we done the ‘Trump said something insane, what’s its impact’ game? Yet another bombshell without an explosion,” said Douglas Heye, a veteran GOP strategist. “Meanwhile, we’ve stopped talking cat ladies and coconuts and are back on Trump. So, even if clumsily so, mission accomplished.”

Over the last 24 hours, GOP lawmakers, strategists and activists — including Trump loyalists — made clear they believe that doubling down on race-based attacks is not a winning electoral strategy. They argue the former president has a strong case to make on issues like the economy and immigration — and that questioning whether Harris is really Black may gin up the MAGA base but isn’t going to help him win the election.

“The more Trump goes after her for questioning whether she’s Black or not, the less he’s going after her for the economy and immigration, and he really needs to hammer those two things,” said Barrett Marson, a GOP strategist in Arizona.

Democrats believe Trump’s rhetoric is motivating for their base, too. They argue it further bolsters their case with moderate suburbanites mostly happy with his policies but uncomfortable with Trump’s persona, as well as voters of color whom the former president has been trying to make inroads with.

“Trump’s back on the front page. That’s a good thing for Democratic enthusiasm. That is an incredibly good thing for swing voters in the suburbs,” said Morgan Jackson, a Democratic strategist in North Carolina. “If the question you’re asking yourself as a voter in October is, ‘Do I really want Trump to return to office or not?’ I think that’s a good place for Democrats.”

In the halls of Congress, Republican senators’ reluctance to talk about Trump’s Wednesday comments revealed a desire not to get caught in the former president’s morass and return to talking about policy. Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) called Trump’s remarks “unnecessary” and said they “run the risk of interpretation, cherry picking, confusion, all the which has been unnecessary.”

He added that politicking on the basis of “the gender, identity, the color, the race — I mean, leave that to Democrats.”

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said that Republicans need to be talking more about Harris’ “failed policies” and the record of the Biden-Harris administration.

"She’s taken the most extreme positions you can possibly imagine. Now she’s in the process of disavowing them,” he said. “So I think I would prefer to focus on that.”

Jordain Carney and Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.