Carville: Trump knows Harris is ‘hot item’ and ‘it’s driving him crazy’

Democratic strategist James Carville said in a podcast interview that former President Trump “knows” Vice President Harris is today’s “hot item,” adding that he suspects it is “driving him crazy” as the election gets closer.

Carville touted the Harris campaign’s recent surge in momentum in an interview on “The Daily Blast with Greg Sargent,” released Tuesday, saying the Trump team has seemed “dazed” and “off balance” since the vice president entered the picture.

Asked whether Trump is in trouble and whether he knows it, Carville told the host, “Yes and yes.”

“He has a shark-like survival instinct, and he knows that he’s not having the same effect as he used to,” he said.

“He knows that Harris has become what he’s always wanted to be, is the kind of, hot item,” said Carville, who served as an aide to former President Clinton. “He does, and he’s not the new kid on the block anymore, and he’s struggling to regain that.”

He added, “But like I said, he has very primitive survival skills, and I think this is something, and it’s driving him crazy.”

Carville was one of the loudest voices in the Democratic Party calling for President Biden to step aside from the top of the 2024 ticket. At the time, he said the party should not automatically choose Harris as his replacement and should instead have an open process.

On the Tuesday podcast, however, the pundit noted that he has been impressed with the Harris campaign so far.

“You know, I love to be critical of campaigns,” he said, adding, “I haven’t seen anything, honestly — I’m sure I will — that I would be really critical about so far.”

“It’s amazing how they’ve put together, who was it, July 21, the date that he dropped out? And they’ve put together a convention, they’ve picked a running mate, they’ve kind of merged two staffs, two different coaches together,” Carville continued. “I mean, I have to give them high marks, I just do.”

Carville added that that while, in the past, Trump has outperformed the polls in some of the key battleground states, he is more optimistic about Harris’s chances than it might come across.

“I’m actually a little more bullish on Harris than I sound on television, for the following reasons: Number one is she’s really gained a lot since she’s been there. Secondly, the most under-appreciated factor of American politics in this decade, since 2022, since Kansas, the Democrats have not lost an election, period,” he said, before noting an exception.

In the Decision Desk HQ/The Hill’s national polling average, Harris is leading Trump by 4 percentage points — 49.5 percent to 45.5 percent.

The Hill has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.