Soon after Donald Trump’s campaign team took over the Republican National Committee earlier this year, a senior Trump aide was asked how to combat news stories that the campaign had an insufficient get-out-the-vote operation.
“We are going to beat the reporters into retardation!” shouted James Blair, one of the two men now leading the operation, on a call with other advisers, according to two people with direct knowledge of the conversation. Blair did not respond to a request for comment.
Such pugnacity has come to define much of the tone and image of Trump’s 2024 campaign, reflecting the personalities of many of the men leading it as well as the candidate. Trump has long valued being viewed as an alpha male who never apologizes or shows weakness.
In many ways, that campaign culture mirrors some of its strategies. Trump and his advisers are calculating that, at a time when polls show voters dissatisfied with the direction of the country, and with turmoil abroad revealing the limitations of America’s global influence, they can win the White House by projecting a particular kind of strength — with a distinctly aggressive vibe not seen in presidential campaigns before.
That posture also fits with the campaign’s focus on appealing to young men, who advisers view as a key untapped voting bloc that could help tip the electoral college in Trump’s favor in a closely divided electorate. Polls show he has an edge with this group, and Trump has gone out of his way to appear with celebrities — from Ultimate Fighting Champion chief executive Dana White to controversial YouTuber Logan Paul — popular with many young men.
Trump’s lead spokesman, Steven Cheung, is a former UFC staffer who routinely taunts Democrats in crass ways, once publicly comparing the Biden campaign to an injured male organ. One of his favorite insults is a pejorative slang for a weak man derived from the term for a husband who has been cheated on. Cheung also accused an employee at Arlington National Cemetery of having a mental health episode after she complained of being shoved aside by two male Trump aides who wanted to film Trump at gravesites. The aggressiveness of many of his statements has surprised some others on the campaign.
Co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita — a combat veteran sometimes jokingly called “Sarge” — has sent profane invectives to people who crossed him, according to people familiar with his communications. Earlier this year he posted an online message to “all my haters”: a photo of fictional mob boss Tony Soprano giving the middle finger that received millions of views. One colleague described him as a person who wakes up at level 10 — and then escalates throughout the day.
Trump himself has attacked Harris using sexist language, including calling her a “play toy” and using lewd innuendo about her romantic relationship in the 1990s with then-San Francisco mayor Willie Brown.
But some Trump allies fear this strategy — and the campaign culture that helped produce it — may also be contributing to a persistent gender gap in which Trump trails far behind Vice President Kamala Harris among women.
Former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, who ran against Trump in the GOP primary before endorsing him at the Republican National Convention, has urged Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), to reconsider how they talk about women and Harris. Current and former advisers have discussed the lack of women surrogates supporting Trump on TV and the need to recruit more, according to people familiar with the calls. Former RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel has told others the campaign is too male-dominated, according to people who have spoken with her.
“It’s obvious Republicans have a woman problem, but it’s not just about policy differences like abortion. The GOP gender gap is just as much about how you talk about those differences,” said Nachama Soloveichik, a Republican strategist and former adviser to Haley’s presidential campaign. “Regardless of gender, any political staffer with a pea-sized brain should know chasing away half the electorate is a bad idea. Talk to women with respect and understanding even when you disagree.”
While the campaign’s senior staff is overwhelmingly male, it does include some high-ranking women, notably co-campaign manager Susie Wiles, senior communications aide Danielle Alvarez, fundraiser Meredith O’Rourke, national press secretary Karoline Leavitt, senior adviser Lynne Patton and attorney Alina Habba. The former president also chose his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, as RNC co-chair.
“President Trump has entrusted a woman to lead his campaign, and he has hundreds of powerful females proudly working on his behalf,” Leavitt said. “The men referenced in this story are our teammates in our shared mission to win this election. Maybe at the Kamala HQ they cry over their gender and pronouns, but here on Team Trump, we only care about one thing: victory on November 5th.”
Wiles, who is known rarely to swear or even raise her voice, has privately told allies that one of her biggest challenges in managing the campaign is “too much testosterone.” Some colleagues in staff meetings have been stunned by how contentiously she has been treated by a younger male staffer, operations director Justin Caporale. She has often sat in meetings quietly while others talk over each other, waiting for the cacophony to finish, people who have described them say. Caporale declined to comment.
The campaign argues that its emphasis on the economy and crime appeals to women as much as men. Aides also point to some current polls showing a narrower gender gap than in 2020. High-quality public polls tracked by The Washington Post in September showed Trump winning men by an average of 10 points and Harris winning women by an average of 10 points. In 2020 exit polls, Trump won men by eight points, while Biden won women by 15 points.
The gap is more pronounced among independents and White voters than partisans and voters of color. Independent women favored Harris 51 percent to 36 percent, according to a recent CNN poll, while independent men split 47 percent for Trump and 40 percent for Harris. The poll showed Trump ahead among White women 50 percent to 47 percent for Harris, much smaller than his 23-point lead with White men.
“The future of our country is at stake, and women are worse off because of Kamala Harris’s failures,” Alvarez said. “Women care about the economy, affordability, safety, and common sense — and we care deeply about the future of our nation because we care deeply about our families. The notion that women need to be coddled and can’t be tough is a fake media narrative. Whether in our households, boardrooms, or campaign offices, we are often the toughest in the room.”
Former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway said his 2016 campaign worked to mitigate a deficit with women in states like Pennsylvania, closing the gender gap close to the level of the 2012 race between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama. She called the current dynamic a “double gender gap” because Trump has secured such a large advantage with men.
“Women have been the majority of the presidential electorate since 1964,” Conway said. “We decide who our presidents are.”
Trump has said women should vote for him more explicitly in recent weeks, writing in one all-capitalized message that women are “MORE DEPRESSED AND UNHAPPY” than four years ago but will be “HAPPY, HEALTHY, CONFIDENT AND FREE” with him in the White House — and “WILL NO LONGER BE THINKING ABOUT ABORTION.”
Longtime GOP strategist Antonia Ferrier said the campaign’s rhetoric toward women was striking the wrong tone, citing Trump’s recent post vowing to “PROTECT WOMEN” as an example.
“We don’t need to be protected,” she said. “We need engagement. Right now, I would say that engagement on the Republican side of the aisle is lacking and could be improved. I think for a lot of women who are mothers, daughters, sisters, they are raising children. Some of the tone and rhetoric just turns a lot of suburban women off because they are trying to raise good children.”
The Trump campaign has taken some steps to try to soften his image, including featuring photographs with his grandchildren — he previously was resistant to showing too much of a fatherly side, campaign advisers said. The final night of the Republican National Convention featured a speech from his 17-year-old granddaughter, Kai. The campaign has also been deploying women surrogates such as former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.).
Trump’s 2016 campaign almost imploded in the closing weeks after The Washington Post published a 2005 hot mic recording in which he bragged about making unwanted sexual advances. More than a dozen women have accused him of sexual misconduct, and a New York jury found him liable for sexual abuse in a civil case last year. He has denied the allegations.
“There’s a pretty big universe of women who think he’s a misogynist, that he doesn’t like women, that he demeans women, that he’s a sexual predator, et cetera, et cetera,” Harris campaign pollster John Anzalone said. “And without a doubt, there’s a group of men who thinks he’s an alpha male who is going to solve all our problems by flexing his muscles.”
Some staffers said the dynamic has worsened since August when Trump brought Corey Lewandowski, his former 2016 campaign manager, back onto the team. Lewandowski left the 2016 campaign after grabbing a female reporter’s arm (he wasn’t prosecuted), and in 2021 he lost a position in a pro-Trump super PAC after allegations of sexually harassing a donor.
The woman, Trashelle Odom, described the encounter in an interview with CBS News that aired on Saturday. She described the interaction in detailed terms to CBS News, saying “I felt like I was his prey” and that she was forced to throw a drink on him to make it stop. Odom said she was speaking about it because she did not want it to happen to anyone else.
“If you’re having problems with women, why would you bring on Corey Lewandowski?” asked one longtime Trump ally.
Lewandowski is known for embodying the attitude of “let Trump be Trump,” which some other advisers see as encouraging the candidate’s worst impulses. A campaign official said Lewandowski has reduced his presence at campaign headquarters and does not supervise any campaign employees. Asked to comment for this article, Lewandowski said: “The Washington Compost continues to regurgitate old news because you are desperate for Comrade Kamala to be President. I’m a volunteer and am proud to donate my time to help President Trump Make America Great Again.”
In July, the Republican National Convention showcased the Trump campaign’s laddish aesthetic with performances from Kid Rock and Hulk Hogan. The campaign often attacks Democrats by portraying them as feminine or weak. “Soys for Harris!” Jason Miller, one of the campaign’s top advisers, said in a recent post, using a slang term for effeminate men.
“Donald Trump is running this overly testosterone-y campaign,” said Christina Reynolds, senior vice president of communications for Emily’s List, which supports Democratic women. “Hulk Hogan ripped apart his T-shirt onstage — they had a very specific audience and a very specific message for their convention, and that’s what they’re aiming at.”
Some allies wanted Trump to offset what they see as his vulnerability with women voters by choosing a woman as his running mate. Instead, his choice of Vance produced one of the campaign’s most memorable phrases: his resurfaced 2021 lament of a country run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies.” Vance was also mocked online for posting a tarmac photo of himself with mostly male aides saying, “This Entourage reboot is going to be awesome” — referring to the 2000s HBO show about a young Hollywood star and his male hangers-on.
This Entourage reboot is going to be awesome pic.twitter.com/cHbU6Z1H3u
— JD Vance (@JDVance) August 7, 2024
Some Trump critics reappropriated Vance’s phrase, including pop star Taylor Swift in her endorsement of Harris this month. The “cat ladies” controversy reached such a level of public awareness that voters often bring it up unprompted in focus groups, according to Sarah Longwell, an anti-Trump Republican researcher and strategist. The scandal was damaging for Trump because it reminded voters of aspects of his candidacy that many voters already didn’t like.
Trump responded to Swift’s endorsement of Harris on social media, “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!”