The first question during Donald Trump’s “angry,” “rambling, incoherent, demented,” “complaining,” and “lie-filled” Thursday afternoon news conference from Mar-a-Lago was about campaign strategy, and would he be changing it. No, Trump insisted. Another question – which the ex-president declared “stupid” – was about his lack of campaign events.
In the weeks since President Joe Biden’s campaign-ending debate performance, Donald Trump has hit the campaign trail barely more than a handful of times. In 42 days, Trump has held just eight rallies.
“What a stupid question,” Trump responded to the reporter. “Because I’m leading by a lot and I’m letting their convention go through. I’m campaigning a lot.”
Trump is not “campaigning a lot,” but in that statement Trump made big news. He casually announced he will continue to not, or to barely, campaign for another two weeks.
Trump is also not “leading by a lot,” according to the latest polls which show Vice President Harris has erased his lead, even in some swing states. FiveThirtyEight’s polling average as of right now has Harris beating Trump by 2.1 points nationally.
The other big news Trump dropped is that he’s allegedly agreed to three debates and claims almost all the details are ironed out.
There is no actual confirmation of that claim, nor has the Harris campaign weighed in.
Trump’s winding and unfocused hour-long news conference led political experts to express grave concern.
“Trump looks ill,” observed The New Yorker’s Susan Glasser.
“This the message discipline, focused attack on Harris Republicans were waiting for from Trump, right?” Glasser said minutes later, mocking the ex-president. “Bigger crowd size. Check. Forced purchases of electric cars. Check. Mental asylums. Check.”
“Trump is completely whacked out. He’s terrified,” remarked Obama 2012 campaign manager Jim Messina.
“If watching Trump’s public meltdown at Mar-a-lago right now, you think he’s stable and cognitively able enough to entrust with the lives of our Troops and the lives of your families, we don’t know what to tell you. The old man is one egg short of an omelette,” warned the progressive political action committee VoteVets.
Former Trump press secretary Stephanie Grisham, Thursday morning before the news conference wrote: “He’s panicking. I’ve seen this play many times. He thinks his team is failing him & no one can speak better/’save’ his campaign/defend him but him. He hates the coverage Harris is getting & thinks only he can fix it.”
Trump’s campaign schedule, as that reporter noted, has been strangely empty. The Republican National Convention fell within those seven weeks, but even without that, it’s exceptionally thin.
This week, he will hold just one campaign rally, in Bozeman, Montana, a decidedly red-state he won in 2020 by more than 16 points over Joe Biden and by more than 20 points in 2016 in his race against Hillary Clinton.
“The GOP nominee has grown increasingly upset about Kamala Harris’s surging poll numbers and media coverage since replacing Joe Biden on the ticket,” The Washington Post reported Wednesday. Harris “has been traveling more on the campaign trail than Trump, who is fundraising this week in Florida.”
“Harris will visit six states this week,” The Post adds. “Democrats wonder about the state of Trump’s operation, while the former president’s advisers note that he has campaigned for 21 months.”
Vice President Harris isn’t just traveling to six states this week. In the 19 days since President Biden ended his campaign and handed it over to Harris, she “has raised over $310 million for her campaign, with 66 percent of donations coming from first-time contributors,” Vox reported Wednesday at 7 AM.
“The Democratic super PAC Future Forward also said it had received $150 million in commitments in the first 24 hours after Biden ended his campaign. And by 5 pm on Tuesday, Democrats raised more than $24 million through their ActBlue platform after Harris announced that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz would be her running mate. Big-money donors, such as co-founder Reid Hoffman and billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban, have come out to support her pick, suggesting that they may be writing more checks to her campaign,” Vox added.
There’s also the time she spent picking a vice presidential running mate, and by the response, she chose wisely in Minnesota Governor Tim Walz:
“Harris is holding festival-sized rallies while Vance follows her around all day & is lucky if he gets curious passersby to stop & wonder what he’s doing in a strip mall parking lot,” observed Messina on Wednesday. “Where’s Trump? He’s hiding, posting racist crap on Truth Social.”
On Wednesday, conservative political strategist Mary Anna Mancuso declared, “Trump is quiet quitting his own campaign.”
Hours before Trump’s Thursday presser, she wrote: “Trump is panicking.”
And during the news conference, she noted Trump was “spiraling.”
And later, she concluded, “Trump is not ok.”
