Trump takes his ‘scam’ message to the heartland

The outcome of the impeachment investigation in Washington is all but certain. So President Donald Trump and his allies are focusing their defense on the people they think matter far more to their future: Americans from across the nation who will decide his political fate in November 2020.

White House officials in recent weeks have participated in nearly 700 television and radio interviews, many in communities big and small across the U.S., according to a White House official familiar with the effort. Cabinet secretaries are spreading Trump’s anti-impeachment message when they travel. And Trump aides are engaging Republican governors across the nation to fight back against Democrats and others who back impeachment.

The Republican National Committee alone has spent $2 million on its “Stop the Madness” campaign, targeting vulnerable House Democrats through ads and events in local districts. And Trump’s campaign is pushing out similar messages through social media and TV ads that dub impeachment a “scam” and a “coup.”

Trump wants to convince Americans that the impeachment investigation is faulty — in part because it relies on secondhand information — but, more important, that Democrats are wasting time on a partisan investigation when they could be working on policies, such as lowering prescription drug costs, forging new trade agreements and replacing crumbling roads and bridges.

His allies know people across the country have already made up their minds about the investigation into Trump pressuring Ukraine to investigate the Bidens. But they're looking to influence the small slice of independent voters who will help decide next year’s presidential election and influence lower-ballot races across the country.

Their greatest vulnerability is climbing poll numbers in favor of impeachment. If public opinion worsens for the president, Republicans could start turning against him and create an insurmountable problem. The Trump team’s approach is designed to build a coast-to-coast firewall against that risk.

“It’s critical President Trump and Republicans take their message outside the Beltway because this is the week the impeachment witch hunt becomes a visual for every American,” Jason Miller, a senior adviser on Trump's 2016 campaign, said after public hearings began. “You're ... going to see the message of Democrats wasting taxpayers’ time and money rise in importance as these circus-like, hyperpartisan hearings do nothing to change the fact-pattern benefiting President Trump.”

Trump is also counting on some Americans tuning out the complex Ukraine scandal altogether, aides say. A review of the front pages of newspapers across the country last week showed that while many featured the launch of public hearings, some had no coverage at all, choosing to highlight local issues instead.

The White House’s organized outreach efforts began Oct. 1, a week after House Democrats officially launched an impeachment inquiry after learning Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate potential Democratic rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

Trump and his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani have accused Biden, while he was serving as vice president, of helping secure lucrative deals for his son, who at one time served on the board of a Ukrainian natural gas company, Burisma Holdings. Trump and Giuliani have defended their efforts, saying it was part of a broader effort to eradicate corruption in the former Soviet republic.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had been reluctant for months to launch the inquiry in part because of the lack of overwhelming public support. But polls began to show an uptick in support after details emerged about Ukraine. Still, she acknowledged last week that they could still have a tough path to win over Americans — leaving an opening for Trump.

“Impeaching is a divisive thing in our country. It‘s hard,“ Pelosi said. “And the place that our country is now, it‘s not a time where you go to 70% ... when President Nixon walked out of the White House.”

Fifty percent of voters support the impeachment inquiry, compared with 41 percent who oppose it, according to a POLITICO/Morning Consult poll released last week. Twenty nine percent said there’s a chance they could change their minds, but only 2 percent said there’s a strong chance.

“Voters are commonly influenced by neighbors or people they know, so it makes sense they may try to be using a granular strategy to find validating messengers for their messages,” said Rob Stutzman, a Republican political strategist in California. “It could be particularly effective if influential leaders out of Washington are dismissing a process that is taking place exclusively in Washington.”

Trump careens from one message to another in statements and tweets, but his aides and allies at the White House, campaign and RNC are focused on two big themes: Democrats are trying to subvert the will of the voters in 2016, and the partisan investigation makes it impossible to get anything else done in Washington.

“Democrats are more concerned about baseless attacks against President Trump than they are about passing key legislation that will benefit all Americans,” according to RNC talking points obtained by POLITICO. “As President Trump continues to work for all Americans, Democrats in Congress are doing nothing. Ratifying the USMCA, critical defense spending, Appropriations bills to fund federal departments and agencies, and $1.7 billion worth of tax breaks are being left on the table while Democrats pursue this impeachment sham.”

The White House, campaign and RNC are also responding to specific details that have emerged from the investigation: The witnesses are offering “massively weak” evidence. Democrats are engaging in an “incredibly unfair process” in which Republicans are not allowed adequate participation. Trump’s voluntary release of the transcript of the two calls with Zelensky show the president has taken “unprecedented steps to be transparent.” There’s no evidence of pressure by Trump or that he withheld foreign aid for Ukraine, as his predecessor, Barack Obama, did.

The strategy is supposed to fire up Trump’s supporters but also appeal to that small slice of independent voters who live in districts and states crucial to his election and may be turned off by what they see. The RNC claims opposition to the hearings in the Rust Belt, which includes several states Trump flipped in 2016, has increased by 4 points in its internal polling.

“They lost the election, now they want to steal this one,” a Trump campaign TV ad warns. “Don't let them.”

Last week, as the investigation moved into the open with public hearings, the White House set up a rapid response team to push back on testimony in real time by sending out emails and posting messages about impeachment to surrogates — similar to what it did during special counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony about the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings. It will do the same this week when Democrats hold three additional days of hearings.

Since Oct. 1, Trump and White House officials, including counselor Kellyanne Conway and principal deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley, have participated in 351 TV interviews and 336 radio interviews, the official says.

The RNC‘s “Stop the Madness“ campaign, which started at about the same time, has held more than 100 events targeting 60 vulnerable House Democrats who represent Trump districts or campaigned on reaching across the aisle to work with Trump, including those in North Carolina, Ohio and Nevada, and Senate and gubernatorial candidates in Louisiana, Alabama and Kentucky, a RNC spokesperson said.

The party spent $2 million on TV and digital ads — the first time the RNC has been on TV in eight years — as well as engaged in calls, texts and Facebook petitions, the official said. About 75,000 people signed up to volunteer for the party through a new Stop the Madness website.

The Trump campaign declined to release details of its efforts, but in addition to several impeachment-focused TV ads, it has bought hundreds of Facebook ads featuring a personalized “Impeachment Defense Membership Card” and “Impeachment Polls.”

“Americans have the truth before their very eyes in a firsthand transcript that shows there was no quid pro quo and that this impeachment inquiry is little more than an illegitimate coup being waged by Democrats who know they cannot beat President Trump at the ballot box,” said Kayleigh McEnany, a campaign spokeswoman.

On Friday, Trump War Room, a Twitter account maintained by Trump’s campaign with nearly 400,000 followers, drew attention to a tweet by a purported nonTrump voter whom the campaign hopes represents what’s to come.

“Anyone with any intellectual honesty can see that this hearing is a sham devoid of any semblance of due process,” he wrote. “Go ahead Democrats, vote to impeach. You've lost any chance at this independent‘s vote.

Gabby Orr contributed to this report.