MILWAUKEE – A senior Trump campaign official said Thursday that the 2024 presidential campaign will not end until Inauguration Day, rather than after Election Day on Nov. 5, when voters across the country go to the polls to cast their ballots and the outcome is usually projected.
Chris LaCivita’s claim at a Politico event is notable given former President Donald Trump’s refusal to acknowledge the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to President Joe Biden, and the subsequent violent attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters on January 6, 2021.
It is also essential because the US Department of Justice claims After Election Day 2020, Trump conspired with lawyers and election officials in seven states to create false electoral slates. According to the indictment, those slates were to be delivered to Vice President Mike Pence during routine certification in a joint session of Congress in early January after the presidential election.
“It’s not over until he puts his hand on the Bible and takes the oath. It’s not over until then. It’s not over on Election Day, it’s over on Inauguration Day, because I don’t trust anybody,” LaCivita, Trump’s co-campaign manager, told Politico’s Jonathan Martin during a long interview open to press and attendees, and streamed liveat the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
Trump did not attend Biden’s inauguration, and he and many Republican lawmakers continue to repeat false claims that he won.
LaCivita interrupted his comment just as Martin was asking about the Democrats’ prospects on Election Day.
“It’s also possible that Donald Trump will lose,” Martin added. LaCivita said the campaign will continue to focus on the issues.
Moments later, Martin asked LaCivita if he thought it would be politically wise for Trump to continue campaigning for a pardon for the January 6 rioters.
“I always find it amazing that you are the ones who bring this up,” LaCivita said, referring to the press.
“That’s not true,” Martin replied.
“I’ve done a lot of interviews where that’s the first question people ask,” LaCivita said. “We’re talking about the important issues right now, social security, protecting social security and health insurance, closing the border. I mean, we have so much to talk about and that’s our focus.”
“In a perfect world by Chris LaCivita [Trump] “I would never say the words ‘January 6 hostages’ again,” Martin added.
LaCivita responded immediately, repeating: “Social Security, Medicaid, border closure, deportation – yes, I said that – all those things.”
In March told According to reporters, he was open to cutting Social Security and other social programs to reduce the national debt.
Election fraud falsely claimed
Trump repeated false claims of voter fraud in the months following the 2020 election and lost numerous legal challenges in states he claimed to have won.
The fight escalated into political violence on January 6, when a mob of Trump supporters with improvised weapons overran the U.S. Capitol Police with the goal of preventing Congress from certifying the election results.
The historical criminal accusation of a former sitting US President – handed down by a federal grand jury in August 2023 – accuses Trump of, among other crimes, conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstruction of an official proceeding.
Trump was able to successfully delay the federal election tampering case by taking his motion to dismiss the election on the basis of the president’s criminal immunity all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The judges on 1 July governed in a 6-3 decision that former presidents enjoy broad immunity for official acts, and triggered major Questions about what kind of evidence can be used in such criminal proceedings.
“How do you use” an assassination?
Reaction to the attempted murder against Trump on Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania, has evolved over the first three days of the RNC. It has evolved from initial concerns about political violence to a rally around the event as a symbol of how “Trump Strong” can reshape America, as Donald Trump Jr. said Wednesday night.
Trump supporters at the RNC wore bogus ear patches as a political symbol, similar to the red “Make America Great Again” hat.
“How do you use the energy or the emotions you feel when something like this happens? How do you use it to get you where you need to be?” LaCivita said.
“How do you use it to win an election or how do you use it to keep the country one?” Martin asked.
“I think it’s both,” LaCivita said.
The co-campaign manager dodged a question about whether Trump would try to encourage his supporters during his RNC speech not to believe conspiracy theories circulating online that the shooting was a Democratic plot. Martin asked whether LaCivita agreed that it would be “good for the country” if Trump retracted the allegations against his opposing political party.
LaCivita said the campaign team plans to make Trump’s speech “forward-looking.”
“I mean, look, there are not enough facts and it is not our job to talk about the facts that emerge from what is happening,” said LaCivita, joining the chorus of criticism of the US secret service that called on its chief to resign.
Hours after Saturday’s shooting, U.S. Senator JD Vance of Ohio – who was announced as Trump’s running mate at the RNC on Monday – wrote on social media that today was not just an isolated incident.
“The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. This rhetoric led directly to the assassination of President Trump,” he wrote.
Project 2025 is a nuisance for Trump
Among the issues permeating the RNC is the grand conservative Project 2025, which is haunting Trump’s campaign in a way that LaCivita called “annoying.”
The 922 pages document The campaign is led by the Heritage Foundation, which plans a change in president and a restructuring of the government. It will lobby Congress for nationwide abortion restrictions and the restoration of “the American family as the center of American life and for the protection of our children.”
The organization hosted a full-day political festival five blocks from the RNC convention hall on Monday.
Trump denies any connection to the project, although former Trump administration officials identified their past positions in the project materials. A CNN analysis found that 140 people who had previously worked for Trump had helped with Project 2025.
LaCivita said any claim that Trump had anything to do with the project was “utter nonsense.”
“You don’t speak for the campaign.”
