Republicans who spoke with CNN expressed concerns that Trump’s route to reelection hinges on developments out of his control

Supporters of President Donald Trump camp outside the BOK Center ahead of his upcoming rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

According to interviews with 15 Republicans, both inside and outside the campaign, Trump himself is driving the strategy of convincing Americans that it’s time to end the lockdowns and get the country moving again.

For the true believers among Trump’s team of advisers, Tulsa is seen as a cure-all for the campaign’s current woes, a chance for the President to model a return to normalcy and reposition himself as the once and future savior of the US economy.

“The rally is a great signal to the rest of the country that it’s time to get things moving again,” said Tim Murtaugh, Trump’s campaign communications director. “Americans will now see the contrast between the President’s record of accomplishment versus the history of failure Biden brings to the table.”

But to many Republicans, the rally is a sign of desperation and merely provides a temporary distraction from a litany of bad news. The intense focus the campaign has put on holding a rally in a deep red state illustrates what some Republicans outside the campaign worry is a failure to acknowledge the real trouble the President is in.

The event undoubtedly marks a pivotal moment for Trump’s reelection effort. In a matter of months, what looked to be a strong case for a second term has evaporated. The coronavirus has turned his biggest strength — a roaring economy — into the worst recession in more than a generation.

Though the political landscape has changed dramatically, many Republicans worry the campaign has not changed along with it. Some strategists associated with the campaign tell CNN they are frustrated that the new focus on “renewal” and “rebuilding” is not more clear, given the fact that the Trump team has had months to get used to the new political environment.

But aides say Tulsa is about something far more important: giving Trump the adulation he craves and reenergizing him after weeks spent wallowing in sagging poll numbers and critical media coverage.

“I guarantee you after Saturday, if everything goes well, he’s going to be in a much better mood,” a Trump political adviser said. “He believes that he needs to be out there fighting and he feeds off the energy of the crowds.”

The path forward

Brad Parscale, campaign manager for President Donald Trump, speaks before a rally at the target center on October 10, 2019 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

One Trump political adviser said the move last month to elevate former White House aide Bill Stepien to deputy campaign manager was designed to insulate Parscale from criticism. It’s also meant to ensure that “if we ever get to a point where Brad has to go,” the campaign will have a natural successor who is loyal to Kushner, the adviser said.

Rather than addressing these issues head on, the President’s apparent strategy has been almost to wish them away. The White House has downplayed the recent uptick in coronavirus cases and Trump’s response to the racial unrest roiling the country has been diffident at best and damaging at worst.

Aides have recently encouraged Trump to stop talking about race and focus more on his record on job creation. Few around him believe Trump is able to rise to the occasion the current moment calls for.

“We are beyond the point of looking presidential,” said one person involved with the campaign.

Still, while the Trump campaign may be floundering, it’s far from flailing. An incumbent president carries myriad advantages, and Trump has proven particularly resilient amidst an endless stream of controversy and crisis.

“Traditional rules of politics have never applied to Donald Trump. We’ll see if they do this time,” said a senior Iowa Republican official who speaks frequently to the President’s team. “Counting him out would be malpractice for Democrats.”

That point is clear inside the Biden campaign, which launched its first national advertising effort Friday in six battleground states that Trump carried. For now, Biden is on offense, but Biden aides are aware that the race is only dawning.

Counting on a ‘Great American Comeback’

President Donald Trump speaks in the Rose Garden on June 5 touting the May jobs report.

Rather than force Trump to meet the moment and unite the country, the campaign is looking to target two specific voter groups: die-hard, largely rural supporters who failed to come out in the midterms to vote for Republicans, and white suburban moderates and independents who approve of Trump’s handling of the economy but remain unsure about supporting him in November.

Scott Jennings, the former deputy White House political director under President George W. Bush, said Trump can still turn things around — particularly if the economy rebounds before November.

“The President has an opportunity to dig himself out of a hole,” said Jennings, a CNN contributor. “If it feels like he is presiding over an economic comeback, that is the issue on which people trust him the most.”

Perhaps most importantly, the very occurrence of the rally will be a core element of the President’s tribal, us-versus-them politics. While many of his critics have argued that holding a rally in the midst of the pandemic is a public-health risk, Trump can side with a rural and exurban base that has not faced the brunt of the economic consequences of a virus that has hit urban areas hardest.

“He can make the argument that rural communities shouldn’t have responded to Covid the same way Manhattan did,” said one Republican operative close to the White House. “That is why re-opening is key. He can tell them he pushed for that, he was working for them.”

It’s a theme the broader Trump team has been articulating. White House adviser Kellyanne Conway denounced “Covid-shaming” of Trump supporters on Fox News Wednesday, drawing a contrast with how the media treats those who did not wear masks or socially distance during the protests following Floyd’s death.

Marc Lotter, a former adviser to Vice President Mike Pence who now advises the campaign, cast it in patriotic terms.

“This is a country that was built on taking risk and conquering,” Lotter said in an interview last month with Spectrum News, a regional cable news network.

Trying to define Biden

Democratic presidential candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden speaks about the economy during an event in Dover, Del., Friday, June 5, 2020.

One source of frustration among Trump’s political team has been the lack of focus on Biden, who many in the President’s orbit say is a weaker general-election candidate than Hillary Clinton was in 2016.

“It would be one thing if they could make this race all about Biden. That is something Trump can do very effectively. But unfortunately this race has nothing to do with Biden, it is all about Trump and that is why he is in trouble,” said the GOP operative who works with the Trump team.

At one point the President considered boycotting the debates, but his thinking has changed. One person who talks to the President on a regular basis tells CNN that he is eager to debate Biden because he believes the former vice president has lost a step and that he can appear energetic by comparison. Trump, who just turned 74, is three-and-a-half years younger than Biden, who will turn 78 in November.

Biden’s absence from the campaign trail has helped the Democrat avoid scrutiny of both his positions and his fitness for office. But some Republicans think it’s also left Biden undefined in the minds of some voters, despite his decades in public office.

“Nobody can give you anything about Joe Biden,” said one GOP strategist. “He can be whatever we want to make him.”

But the President’s campaign sees the chance to define Biden on their terms slipping away, especially in the weeks after he secured the Democratic nomination when the country was preoccupied with the pandemic. That missed opportunity has caused Trump’s team to redouble its efforts to tag Biden with every unpopular view or idea from the Democratic party as it heads into the summer.

On Friday, Trump’s campaign launched a website called BarelyThereBiden.com that mocks the Democrat for his supposed “incoherence.”

“(Trump) is not the kind of candidate that can afford to run an undefined race,” said Jennings. “He’s got to run against a defined opponent.”