By Nathan Layne and Gram Slattery
BEDMINSTER, New Jersey (Reuters) – Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump will hold a press conference at his New Jersey golf club on Thursday, his latest effort to steal the spotlight back from Democratic rival Kamala Harris, who has dominated headlines since her late entry into the race.
Trump’s event is aimed at drawing a contrast with Vice President Harris, who has rarely taken questions from reporters since replacing President Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket in late July. Harris has said she plans to do her first formal press interview by the end of the month.
Trump held a similar press event at his Florida resort last week, where he spoke for more than an hour, bashing Harris over immigration and the economy and falsely claiming that his campaign crowds have been much larger than hers.
The Harris campaign sent out a mock “media advisory” for Trump’s press conference on Thursday with the headline, “Donald Trump to Ramble Incoherently and Spread Dangerous Lies in Public, but at Different Home,” a reference to his Bedminster estate.
Hours earlier, the Trump campaign announced five hires, including Corey Lewandowski, who served as Trump’s first campaign manager during his successful 2016 campaign. Lewandowski voiced his excitement on joining the campaign, posting on X: “Let Trump, Be Trump!”
It was not immediately clear what those additions would mean for the campaign’s day-to-day operations and hierarchy. One campaign official, who requested anonymity to discuss internal personnel matters, said the campaign needed more “soldiers” in the race’s closing months and that the hires were not indicative of any broader shakeup.
“Corey Lewandowski, Taylor Budowich, Alex Pfeiffer, Alex Bruesewitz, and Tim Murtaugh are all veterans of prior Trump campaigns and their unmatched experience will help President Trump prosecute the case against Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, the most radical ticket in American history,” Trump co-campaign managers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles said in a statement.
Budowich was most recently the executive director of MAGA Inc, the main outside super PAC supporting Trump’s bid, while Pfeiffer served as the communications director there. It is common for staff to move between campaigns and their affiliated super PACs, as it can allow each organization to have greater visibility into the other operations. Legally, campaigns and super PACs have limits on how much they can coordinate.
Bruesewitz is a pro-Trump political consultant known for his social media savvy, and Murtaugh was communications director of Trump’s unsuccessful 2020 bid.
Lewandowski was forced out of Trump’s 2016 bid in the months before the election, though Trump later said he regretted it. Lewandowski was later forced out of a pro-Trump super PAC in 2021 after a donor’s wife accused him of unwanted sexual advances.
Trump intends to use Thursday’s press conference to criticize Harris over inflation and the economy, a campaign official said.
His campaign event in North Carolina on Wednesday also was billed as being focused on the economy, but Trump veered a number of times into other topics and personal attacks on Harris.
Harris is scheduled to deliver a speech on economic policy on Friday in North Carolina.
(Reporting by Gram Slattery in Washington and Nathan Layne in Bedminster, New Jersey; Writing by Joseph Ax; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Howard Goller)
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