Lara Trump: Expect more fighting talk and Twitter spats from President Donald Trump in 2020 campaign

  • Video report by ITV News Washington Correspondent Robert Moore

Donald Trump's campaign adviser for his run at the White House in 2020, and also his daughter-in-law, has said people should expect more Twitter spats, more controversy, more name-calling and more fighting talk.

In an exclusive sit-down interview with ITV News, Lara Trump said her father-in-law was excited to soon be hitting the campaign trail once again and that he still had so much more he wanted to achieve.

Pollsters, she said, would be in for another shock if they were predicting defeat for the sitting President.

  • Watch the full interview

Mrs Trump, who is married to the US President's son, Eric, said: "Historically, polls, when it comes to Donald Trump, have never fully reflected the true feeling of the people of this country.

"We saw that throughout 2016, we saw that days before he was elected President that there was no way he was going to beat Hillary Clinton based on the polls.

"So we don't put a whole lot of weight on that."

Mrs Trump, who is a central figure in the campaign for re-election which launches next week, said Mr Trump would be confident of beating whoever the Democrats put up to face him.

No one standout rival candidate has yet emerged, although many are saying it could well be Joe Biden, vice president to Barack Obama.

"I think the president is so excited, he loves campaigning, he loves getting out talking to the people of this country, it's very exciting for him, for all of us," she said.

"It feels good because now he has things to go out there and say 'I promised you this in 2016 and I delivered on it and your life has changed for the better'."

Mrs Trump said the message for 2020 would be more of the same - so that means pressing on with the border wall and putting pressure on other countries, such as China, to get stronger trade deals for the US.

She defended her father-in-law as a "unifying figure" for championing parts of the US and certain communities that had been forgotten, such as blue collar workers and African-Americans.

But, she conceded, Mr Trump does not shy away from confrontation - and that people respected him for taking a stand against those who came gunning for him.

"If he is taunted, he's gonna fight back - and that will likely never change," she said.

Mrs Trump warned critics to expect more of the same treatment from a president who famously uses Twitter to fire off his messages.

She addressed the treatment of the president by US media - which he regularly slams as 'Fake News'.

Mrs Trump said it would be very easy for Mr Trump to give in and be the president they all seem to want, but he's not going to do that.

Mrs Trump said the whole debate about impeachment and investigations was not stressful as the President and his team know "nothing nefarious" happened with the 2016 campaign.

"It's just a lot of talk," she said, and "probably the only strategy they [the Democrats] have".

She said it was "shameful" that people were even considering trying to impeach "our" president.

And she is convinced that even if he'd thought of not running for a second term, there's too much of the fighter in him to seriously consider it.

Mrs Trump, a TV producer by profession, married into the family in 2014 and gave birth to son Luke in 2017.

She is seven months pregnant with their second child and says she understands how difficult it is for legislators to wrestle with the issue of abortion that is at the forefront of so many minds right now in the United States.

She said that as a mother, she had experienced seeing a heartbeat of a foetus at six weeks and that "changes your mind" on many things.

But, she said, there was an argument for certain exceptions to a ban on abortions, such as in the case of rape.

The Trump family were invited en masse to the UK to be part of the president's official state visit.

Some also accompanied Mr Trump to mark the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings.

She insisted the president and his entourage were delighted with the reception they received.

"I think the president was very well received, despite what some media outlets - especially here in the US wanted to say and try to portray his visit as though it was so controversial," she said.

But it was meeting royalty that took Mrs Trump's breath away.

"Never in my life did I ever imagine that I would get to visit Buckingham Palace, meet the Queen, the Royal Family," she said.

"Certainly, for all of us, it was an extraordinary experience."

She also said that the apparent row over Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, was something and nothing: "That's what the media does, loves to manufacture things about the president."

Mr Trump had allegedly described the Duchess as "nasty" for not wanting to meet him.