In his speech at the party's convention last month, former President Donald J. Trump declared that his new economic agenda would be based on a plan to eliminate the tip tax, claiming that the idea would boost the middle class and provide relief to hospitality workers across the country.
“Everyone loves it,” Trump said to applause. “Waitresses, caddies and drivers.”
While economists and tax analysts question the cost and feasibility of the idea, labor experts point to another irony: As president, Trump tried to take away workers' tips and give the money to their employers.
This shift in policy is one of many Trump has made in his bid to become president again, and underscores his malleability in election-year policymaking. From TikTok to cryptocurrencies, the former president has reinvented his platform on the fly to appeal to different swathes of voters. At times, Trump seems to be taking new positions to differentiate himself from Ms. Harris, or perhaps just to please the crowd.
For close observers of Trump's first-term machinations, the change in tipping rates, a policy that has become a regular feature of his campaign speeches, was particularly striking.
“Trump is posing as a champion of the rights of tipped restaurant workers with his proposal to not tax tips. But in reality, he has drastically reduced protections for tipped workers at a time when they are struggling with high living costs,” said Paul Sonn, director of the National Employment Law Project Action, a workers' rights organization.
In 2017, Trump's Labor Department proposed changing federal rules to allow employers to collect tips from their employees and use them for virtually any purpose, as long as employees are paid at least the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. In theory, this flexibility would allow restaurant owners to ensure that cooks and dishwashers receive a portion of the tip pool, but in practice, employers would be able to pocket the tips and spend them as they see fit.
The Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, estimated at the time that the rule could cost tipped workers $5.8 billion a year.
After months of backlash from advocacy groups, lawmakers added language to a 2018 federal spending bill clarifying that employers cannot withhold any portion of tips earned by their employees.
Tipping is not the only issue on which Mr Trump has changed his mind since leaving office.
Amid growing tensions with China in 2020, Trump issued an executive order banning TikTok from U.S. app stores unless the company, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, could address concerns that it posed a national security threat. A federal judge granted TikTok a reprieve that same year, allowing the popular social media platform to continue operating in the U.S. This year, the Biden administration is trying to force the sale of TikTok after passing a law that would require the company to find a new owner.
But now that TikTok is facing closure in America, Mr Trump has become a promoter of the platform.
“Trump will keep TikTok going while Biden and Harris have no idea what that means,” Trump told internet star Adin Ross this week, suggesting that a ban would somehow be good for China. He added: “We're going to save TikTok; they want to destroy TikTok.”
He made it clear that the move was an election ploy, saying: “So, all the people on TikTok, vote for Trump.”
Lobbying also appears to be playing a role. Veterans of the Trump administration have lobbied Jeff Yass, the billionaire Republican donor and TikTok investor, to prevent a ban on the app.
And then there's Bitcoin. In the summer of 2019, Trump attacked digital currencies in a series of social media posts, warning that they could facilitate the sale of drugs and other illegal activities.
“I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which are not money and whose value is highly volatile and based on nothing,” Mr Trump wrote.
But many of Mr Trump's former administration officials continued to work for or lobby the cryptocurrency industry.
And as a candidate this year, Mr. Trump began accepting millions of dollars in cryptocurrency donations and allowing his supporters to use bitcoins to buy Trump-branded sneakers. The Republican Party platform even included a promise to “defend the right to mine bitcoins.”
During a Bitcoin conference in Nashville last month, Trump said he wanted to make the United States the “crypto capital of the planet” and the Bitcoin “superpower of the world.” He criticized the Biden administration, accusing it of stifling the industry and promising to make it flourish if he is re-elected.
“If cryptocurrencies are going to be the future, I want them to be mined, minted and manufactured in the United States,” Trump said, explaining that he had decided it was a good idea to accommodate the more than 100 million Americans who use cryptocurrencies. “You're going to be very pleased with me.”
The Trump campaign team said that Mr. Trump makes his policy decisions based on what he believes is best for the American people.
“Unlike Kamala Harris, who did not list a single policy plan on her campaign website, President Trump has laid out many bold and exciting new policy plans for a second term, including no tax on tips, deregulating cryptocurrency and ensuring American ownership of the popular TikTok app,” said Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign.
Policy shifts are not uncommon in political campaigns, and Trump is not the only one changing his views. His opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, called for a ban on fracking in 2019. But last month her campaign said in a statement to Politico that it would not seek to ban the technology, which is used to extract oil and gas, in states like Pennsylvania, a key electoral district.
Stephen Moore, an economist who advised Trump's 2016 campaign, said Trump's new stance on TikTok and cryptocurrencies is part of a more “pro-technology” mindset that focuses on platforms that are popular with voters.
“I've seen this kind of transformation where there was a distrust of big technology companies, and now I think he sees that we are leading the technology revolution and that's good for America,” Moore said.
The push to abolish the tip tax shows that Trump is doubling down on his populism and trying to reward workers, Moore said.
Despite Trump's efforts to reach out to tipped workers, winning them over may be a challenge.
The hospitality union Unite Here endorsed Ms Harris this week. The union's secretary-treasurer, Nia Winston, said another Trump presidency would bring “significant backlash” and described Mr Trump as “a hotel and casino owner with a history of labor rights violations who has consistently broken union picket lines.”