How to Get Under a Strongman’s Skin, with George Conway

The Political Scene | The New Yorker

The Washington Roundtable is joined by George Conway, co-founder of the Lincoln Project and creator of the Anti-Psychopath Political Action Committee, both of which specialize in making custom attack ads designed to aggravate Donald Trump. They discuss Vice-President Kamala Harris’s debate performance and how her campaign might continue to draw out Trump’s worst instincts by psychologically triggering him. “When we first started running ads, he went on Truth Social and specifically attacked me and Fox News for putting my ads on his TV,” Conway says. “The thing got into his head. . . . He would never have talked about himself possibly having a ‘personality defect’ if it weren’t for what we had said.”

This week’s reading:

• “Donald Trump Had a Really, Really Bad Debate,” by Susan B. Glasser
• “The Presidential Campaign, After Philadelphia,” by Benjamin Wallace-Wells
• “Kamala Harris Makes Her Case Beyond Big Cities,” by Emily Witt
• “Donald Trump’s New ‘Voodoo Economics,’ ” by John Cassidy

Tune in wherever you get your podcasts.