The event was nevertheless consistent with Trump’s now nearly decade-long political career: risky unscripted events that few people running for office would ever attempt, that drive the news cycle for days but not always to his benefit, from a master showman who has formed a deep emotional connection with his supporters.

Trump illustrated on Sunday how much he has changed the Republican Party. Speaker after speaker got up to denounce Dick Cheney, the Iraq War, the Patriot Act, and other staples of GOP orthodoxy just 20 years ago, with the crowd seeming mostly in agreement. The exception, a holdover from that era of the GOP  who is still liked by MAGA Republicans, was Rudy Giuliani, the 9/11-era “America’s Mayor” who was brought low by his ill-fated 2020 election maneuverings and received a standing ovation.

You can witness this shift at Vice President Kamala Harris’s events as well. She has been campaigning with Liz Cheney and has both Cheneys’ endorsements. Liberals on social media have been exhorting George W. Bush and even Mike Pence to follow suit.

WHAT MAGA AND THE GOP WILL LOOK LIKE IN A POST-TRUMP ERA

Yet the main takeaway from the event was an insult comic’s disparaging reference to Puerto Rico. The commonwealth island doesn’t get a vote in the presidential election, though Trump won more than 96% of the vote in its Republican primary. (It should be noted that only a little over 1,000 people voted and the other candidates on the ballot had already withdrawn.) Hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans living in the battleground states do, however.

The Trump campaign distanced itself from the joke, which clearly fell flat with the audience as well. This has so far invited scrutiny of which other remarks at the sprawling multispeaker rally the former president disavows or endorses.

It is the paradox of Trump’s live events. A reality TV star, Trump nevertheless prioritizes entertaining and exciting his supporters in the arena no matter what the impact on the viewers at home. This was on display in his 90-minute acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

No matter how much time Trump devotes to his stump speech, the headlines will inevitably be on his most controversial off-script comments. In the social media age, the campaigns circulate snippets of these speeches and many more people hear about Puerto Rico, Arnold Palmer, and eating dogs than will ever hear or watch the whole outing, much less whatever Trump says about trade or tax policy.

At the same time, Trump has subscribed to the theory that there is no such thing as bad publicity dating back to his early days in New York real estate. He became a tabloid celebrity as a businessman, parlayed this into a second act on television, and ultimately has competed with better-funded opponents in three straight presidential elections in part by dominating free media.

Trump has demonstrated you can outlast adverse headlines, and even calamitous events, because the news cycle moves so quickly. Many of his supporters like his unfiltered talk and are inured to the perpetual outrage stirred by the press and his political opponents. He has also recaptured the less confrontational and more humanizing banter that once allowed him to be a friendly guest to Howard Stern and David Letterman with his numerous podcast appearances.

There are also times when Trump’s approach undeniably works. The most dramatic example was when he was shot during a failed assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. Trump’s immediate instinct was to not leave the stage without a show of defiance, demonstrating to the world he was unbowed.

By contrast, Harris is nothing if not disciplined in driving her message. She is uncomfortable in unscripted moments and avoids giving answers to the most predictable questions if they might create fissures in the anti-Trump coalition she hopes will put her in the White House.

In 2020, with a pandemic and an economy battered by lockdowns, just enough voters tired of the Trump show that they were ready to change the channel to Joe Biden. Now perhaps a critical mass of voters are ready for a Trump reboot.

Thus Trump sits down for three-hour interviewers with podcasters and invites insult comics to his political events ahead of what most pollsters consider a toss-up election. Harris is much more careful and hopes the voters, to say nothing of her vaunted ground game, will reward her caution.

Harris, of course, wants the spotlight to shine on Trump. Trump would like the election to be a referendum on the Biden-Harris record but finds it impossible to cede center stage.