Good morning, everybody.
This morning I am joined by Tim Murtaugh.
He's the director of communications
for President Trump's
reelection campaign. Correct.
Thank you for joining me. Sure. OK.
Tell me about the rundown of today.
It's a huge operation.
You're up early and you're
gonna be up late. Yeah.
We have a 45 fest, first of all,
which is kicking off the day at the American
Airlines Center at 10:30 this morning.
We have live music and food trucks and some,
some live shows put on there with some
with some special guests outside for
the people who have lined up early.
Doors open for the general public at 4:00.
O'clock the the pre show begins.
With some some appearances and some speeches
by some folks that people will recognize
from here in the Texas political world,
doors open at for that at 4:00 o'clock
in the pre show begins at 5 and the
president is expected to take the
stage at about 7:00 o'clock tonight.
So a lot going on tonight.
It always fascinates me just how much
goes into any political campaign,
especially for the presidency.
How do you guys select the
messages that you want to get
out to voters specifically today?
Is it going to change today versus
another day or hearing Texas well?
First of all the president decides
what he will or won't say when he's up
on stage that that much is clear he's
he's the boss and we all recognize
that but I think the message changes a
little bit state to state because the
the the news that's what's going on.
It's always good.
The good news is is where is
where we are in the states.
But it's a little bit different in
Texas here we might have focus a
little bit more on the energy sector.
It's 2,000,000 jobs in in in Texas
that rely on on fossil fuel industries
oil and gas and those those types of
things 2,000,000 jobs and $330 billion.
Of annual investment in the
in the state economy.
So they'll probably talk about
that a lot more than he would
in some other state perhaps.
But the jobs news is always good
wherever the president goes.
Here in Texas 3/4 of a million jobs have
been created since he's been president.
Texas is a border state as you know and
so he'll probably talk a little bit
more about immigration than he would
in some other parts of the country.
And so it varies,
but you know,
it it is generally still the overall message
of it's a great time to be an American.
The economy is strong and the unemployment is
the all time lowest for the state of Texas.
That that it has ever been the unemployment
picture across the whole country is great.
And it doesn't matter who you are,
male, female, white,
black, Latino,
the economic outlook for you
and your family is tremendous.
And that that is really a
central part of the president's
message no matter where we
are. So that's what we can
expect to hear here in Texas or
anywhere is what you're saying.
You know, I don't have to tell you this.
We're living in a divided time.
The president's critics are.
Extremely passionate,
we'll put it that way.
And it goes both ways, right?
What? The conversation of the
messaging on do you even try to
reach out to the folks that say
that they're against Donald Trump
or do you focus on your base,
the supporters?
We think
that the President's message
cuts across party lines.
It really does. I mean, it doesn't.
The fact that there are so
many jobs in this country.
We used to hear about
people looking for jobs.
Right now we have jobs looking for people.
There are actually more available jobs
than there are people looking for them.
And that is not a Democrat
or Republican thing.
That's an American thing,
and that's tremendously. Good news.
So we know that appeals to Republicans.
Republicans are solidly with the president.
There's no question of that.
We also think it appeals
to a lot of independents,
and we think that independent voters
will break the president's way.
That's about 1/3 of the country.
So this is not strictly a base election
where we want just our Republican
Trump supporters to come out and vote,
and we'll be happy about that.
No, no, no.
We think we can attract a lot of
people to the president's side based
strictly on what they see going around
going on in the country around them.
And people can see the success
of his policies every day.
And then you were talking to Marquez.
Look, upstairs, they were on a Daybreak,
live on television, and you were saying,
hey, doing the job that you're doing,
you never know what the president is going
to say or do as a communications director.
What kind of challenge is that?
I mean, I work in the news and every day
you don't know what it's going to be. I
think President Trump is the best
communicator that this campaign has.
There's no question of that.
Whether it's him on the stage talking
about it, whether it's him in a
press conference talking about it,
giving a speech or on Twitter.
The President is, is the one who's,
he's a master of branding.
He's a master of communicating.
He's the one who got elected president
when no one gave him a chance to do that,
even up to and including on Election Day.
And so our our challenge as a campaign
is just to follow his lead because,
you know his instincts are
always dead on and.
You know he,
he is the undisputed boss of the campaign
and and we and we all know our roles
and we fall in line and we follow.
It really is kind of a different way
of doing when you look at a lot of
typical campaigns where everything's
very you know what to expect.
We learned a long time ago
that you you know Donald Trump is who he is.
You know he had a long career long
very successful career in in business
and in television before he ever
even considered running for office.
And so we we sort of we sort of feel
like he knows what he's doing. Final
question for me. Right.
As we're getting ready for
the newscast today news broke
that representative Elijah
Cummings passed away 68.
It really was a shock.
What's your reaction?
Can you speak on behalf of the
campaign and you probably are
just learning of it as well.
I woke up to that news.
Yes, it's very sad news. The logic.
Cummings has been a strong leader and for
the American people in Congress and also
an icon of the civil rights movement,
clearly didn't always see eye
to eye with President Trump.
But you know, in a situation like this,
you, you, you try to put that aside and and
really our heartfelt condolences to logic.
This is his family and his friends and
his constituents there in Baltimore,
and he will be missed.
OK? And this is actually the final question.
I I monitor social media.
I hear from folks all the time.
There's so many people that say
they are exhausted with the
divisive rhetoric or the tone.
Is that something you guys discuss?
And it's not just President Trump at all.
I see it across the board
from every perspective.
Is that a discussion behind the scenes?
You know, not really. I mean,
we can only control what we can control.
And, you know, in the case
of our campaign or, you know,
President Trump is pretty much by this point,
I think a known commodity.
You know, that he, he is who he is.
And I think a lot of the stuff
that the social media just sort of
has made it easier for people to
say the things that they typically
would have said, you know,
privately or between between friends,
you know, on the street.
Perhaps the social media just sort of
spreads it around a little bit more
and maybe maybe we are more divided.
As a country I don't know maybe
maybe we always were like this and
now the social media just makes
it more apparent I I don't really
know but from from our perspective
we as the campaign and and and we
we we follow the president's lead
and we feel like he's he's pretty
well known commodity by this point.
I appreciate you coming out here
and speaking with us and good
luck getting through the day.
Great. Thank you. Thank you.
It's not too hard.