Trump has the inklings of a plan to take on Harris, but he seems unable to implement it

CNN —

Donald Trump showed up in battleground North Carolina for a big speech on the economy – and one of his unhinged rallies broke out.

But amid the insults, trash talk, rage and lies, the former president blundered into the thing he’d been seeking for days: a strategy to take on Vice President Kamala Harris.

The former president took the stage Wednesday with Republican commentators pining for signs that he’d stabilized after more than three weeks of fury and disorientation after President Joe Biden pulled out of the 2024 race.

Former President Donald Trump speaks in Asheville, North Carolina, on Wednesday.

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Anyone hoping for an elusive Trump pivot would have been disappointed, as they almost always are, as he branded Harris “crazy” and “not smart,” while lampooning her laugh with sexist attacks and turning up the heat of his immigration demagoguery.

Trump’s still uncontrolled bitterness that he’s no longer running against Biden stole the headlines from a speech that his campaign billed as a serious exercise devoted to the economy – the issue that voters care about most.

But his remarks, at least the scripted version of them, offered the first signs that the Trump campaign is beginning to settle on a coherent, albeit extreme and divisive, plan to react to a new general election foe. The event, therefore, offered a preview of how the race to Election Day will unfold after the Democratic National Convention next week.

Trump’s plan to slow Harris could end up hurting himself

The new approach, if Trump ever musters the discipline to implement it in a concentrated way, is deeply personal and designed to destroy the