‘He wants to take us back’: Democrats eye new strategy against Trump’s attacks on Harris

It didn’t take long for former President Donald Trump to return to his well-worn playbook of resorting to attacks based on race and gender — familiar tactics he has used against political rivals, including in his 2016 campaign against Hillary Clinton.

But it’s not 2016 anymore, and Democrats assert that the lessons learned from Trump’s campaign eight years ago guide their strategy now: Respond aggressively, use his attacks to bolster the campaign’s message and don’t let them distract from the issues.

That thinking guided their response to Trump’s interview at the National Association of Black Journalists conference in Chicago on Wednesday, where he questioned Vice President Kamala Harris’ Black ancestry and suggested she was chosen for the job only as a “DEI hire.”