Kamala broke it, and Trump will fix it and that's the subject of the riff. So, the electricity was high at the packed house of Madison Square Garden yesterday at Donald Trump’s rally, but even more than just good vibes, there was important messaging.
In one sense, it was a reprise of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, but, in another more important sense, it was a closing statement by Mr. Trump and his team and that statement was undoubtedly viewed nationwide. Even though Madison Square Garden is in New York City, all the major television networks and other media outlets covered it, wall to wall.
Mr. Trump began with the all-important question: "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" This was the famous question Ronald Reagan posed to Jimmy Carter. It probably fits this current election more than any other since Reagan first asked it in his 1980 race against Carter, and then you have the related message: Kamala broke it, but I will fix it.
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This goes directly to the point that voters do not want another four years of the Biden-Harris administration – the affordability crisis, inflation crisis, the war against fossil fuels, the international wars, the open border, crime, the woke culture.
Kamala broke it, and no one wants another four years of it. Trump's prior record shows he can fix it and build on the successes. As a sub-theme, he really had a composite of the new Trump realignment – with Elon Musk, Robert Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and other former Democrats and progressives.
RFK Jr. was particularly effective, saying today's radicalized Democratic Party is not the party anymore of Martin Luther King, of Robert Kennedy, of John Kennedy. Take a listen:
RFK JR.: I didn’t leave the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party left me. It is not the party anymore of Martin Luther King, of Robert Kennedy, of John Kennedy … These are the people that are trying to undermine voting rights in this country, weaponizing federal agencies against political candidates, including me and Donald Trump and all other political candidates … Don't you think we deserve a president in this country who's going to restore the moral authority of the United States of America?
Both RFK Jr. and Vivek Ramaswamy talked about how what matters in this election is not the color of your skin, but the content of your character and the outlook for economic opportunity. Whether Black, White, Hispanic, or any other ethnic group – the liberal-left Democrats are still depending on identity politics. Whereas the rest of the country has given up and moved on, and instead wants results.
This was a key theme of the entire Trump campaign for several years. You heard a lot of it last night. A working-class coalition and then, there's the new political rockstar Elon Musk, talking about cutting $2 trillion out of the federal budget, with his new DOGE – the newly named Department of Government Efficiency.
Once again, Kamala Harris and her left-wing Democrats are flirting with fascism, and Hitler, and other personal attacks that have no bearing whatsoever on the presidential race. Completely ineffective!
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Mr. Trump, on the other hand, showcases an incredibly diverse group of supporters that more closely approximates the makeup of today's America – and the voters he is asking to support him. There was an awful lot of very smart people in that crowd and on the speakers' podium yesterday surrounding Mr. Trump.
That speaks to Trump's good judgment, because it takes a very smart guy to be unafraid to surround himself with very smart people. That's the riff.
This article is adapted from Larry Kudlow’s opening commentary on the Oct. 28, 2024, edition of "Kudlow."