Trump campaign picks up the pace, eyes counter-programming during Democrats' convention

With Vice President Kamala Harris riding a wave heading into next week's Democratic National Convention, former President Trump and his campaign appear to be stepping up their efforts to blunt her momentum.

The Trump campaign announced on Wednesday that the former president will hold a news conference on Thursday - his second in a week.

And Trump's campaign tells Fox News it plans to counter-program during the Democrats' national nominating convention, which kicks off next Monday in Chicago.

A Trump campaign senior adviser, who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely, told Fox News the campaign will put "a whole cadre of people" - including Trump and top surrogates - into the field next week.

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"We're certainly going to have key people in the battlegrounds and available to the media to counterprogram," the adviser said. 

And one of those key people will be Republican National Committee chair Michael Whatley, Fox News has learned.

In years past, it was traditional for a presidential candidate to lay low while the other party held its national nominating convention. 

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But last month, as the Republicans held their convention in Milwaukee, President Biden briefly campaigned in the key swing state of Nevada before cutting his trip short after catching COVID.

Days later, Biden's blockbuster announcement that he was ending his re-election campaign following his disastrous late June debate performance against Trump upended the 2024 election.

At his more than hour-long news conference last week, Trump argued that he wasn't currently criss-crossing the campaign trail because he is leading in the race — even as the latest polls indicate Harris has closed the gap in national and key battleground state surveys. 

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Trump defended his pace on the campaign trail, saying he's "competing a lot" and added that he would further pick up the pace "after their convention."

Sources in Trump's political orbit tell Fox News that top advisers to the former president are quietly aiming to persuade Trump to tamp down the insults to Harris and the questioning of the vice president's racial identity and instead focus on branding her an ultra-liberal and spotlighting her stance on the border, crime and inflation

Trump allies are also publicly pitching Trump to refocus his attention.

"You’ve got to make this race not on personalities," former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Monday in an interview on Fox News' "America's Newsroom." "Stop questioning the size of her crowds and start questioning her position."

McCarthy emphasized that Trump has "a short time frame to do it, so don’t sit back. Get out there and start making the case."

Trump is expected to spotlight an economic argument against Harris on Wednesday at a campaign event at the Harrah's Cherokee Center's Thomas Wolfe Auditorium, in Asheville, North Carolina.

It's the former president's second stop in the crucial southeastern battleground state in the three and a half weeks since Harris replaced Biden at the top of the Democrats' 2024 ticket.

The Trump campaign earlier this week announced that the former president will hold a rally in another crucial swing state - Pennsylvania - on Saturday.

And Trump's running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, holds campaign events Wednesday in Michigan, Thursday in Pennsylvania, and Friday in Wisconsin.

The former president on Monday returned to X [formerly known as Twitter], where he posted a series of campaign videos leading up to his interview hours later with Elon Musk. The multi-billionaire investor who is considered one of the richest people in the world, owns the social media platform and earlier this summer officially endorsed the former president.

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Trump, who was banned from Twitter for a couple of years, made a brief return last year to post his mugshot and a link to collect fundraising donations, before going dark again until Monday.

But Trump's campaign says the return to X isn't a one-off this time around.

A Trump campaign senior adviser emphasized that moving forward, we're "going to continue to see a lot of alternative platform work."

"You’ll see him on X talking to millions of people. You’ll see him on all kinds of conversational podcasts and streams coming up the rest of the campaign. And he’ll still be doing – as he always does – press availabilities, and he will obviously keep doing rallies and special large audience events," said the adviser, who also asked for anonymity to speak more freely.

"Whether it’s on X or any of these other things, the president is unafraid of having unscripted conversations about the issues that matter, in stark contrast to Kamala Harris," the adviser added.

While technical difficulties which delayed the interview with Musk for over 40 minutes grabbed headlines, Trump also gained over 900,000 new followers on X as of Monday night.

Dan Eberhart, an oil drilling chief executive officer and a prominent Republican donor and bundler who raised big bucks for Trump's 2020 re-election campaign and who is supporting Trump again after backing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the GOP presidential primaries, told Fox News that "you’ve always got to be assessing the state of the race, and I would like to see more offense from the Trump campaign. Trump, the man, is the campaign’s best asset. Put him out there."

"Immediately after the Democrat convention closes, I would like to see the gloves come off in a full-throated campaign for Trump," Eberhart emphasized.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.