It’s equal parts horrifying and fascinating to watch the New York Times bet big on Donald Trump winning reelection, but slowly realizing that he’s f–king up all of their plans. I can feel the fury coming from Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan in their latest piece, “Inside the Worst Three Weeks of Donald Trump’s 2024 Campaign.” They are so deeply embedded in Team Trump, they really convinced themselves that Trump had this thing locked down and now the crazy old man can’t land the plane. The only good thing Haberman’s access to Trump gives us at this point is juicy political and personal gossip. Haberman and Swan reveal that Trump is too senile to listen to advisors; that he’s referred to Kamala Harris as a “bitch” in multiple conversations; and that Trump thinks JD Vance is a weirdo too. Some highlights:
Trump showed no regret for attacking Harris’s race: “I think I was right,” he told the rattled donors that Friday night. [Donors] asked how Mr. Trump planned to take the narrative back from Democrats, and what his positive vision for the country would be. It appeared to be a request for reassurance. Mr. Trump provided none. Instead, he criticized Ms. Harris on a range of fronts, before adding: “I am who I am.”
One of the rockiest period of Mr. Trump’s campaign: [It is] easily the worst since a late 2022 spree in which he mused about terminating parts of the Constitution and dined at Mar-a-Lago with a white supremacist and an outspoken antisemite. As Ms. Harris — long ridiculed and underestimated — has transformed the contest, campaigning energetically and drawing roughly even with Mr. Trump in many polls, Mr. Trump has responded with one unforced error after another while struggling to land on an effective and consistent argument against her.
A foul mood: Indeed, Mr. Trump has often been in a foul mood the past few weeks. He has ranted about Ms. Harris. He has called her “nasty,” on “Fox & Friends,” and a “bitch,” repeatedly, in private, according to two people who heard the remark on different occasions. (“That is not language President Trump has used to describe Kamala, and it’s not how the campaign would characterize her,” Mr. Cheung said.)
The “weird” problem with JD Vance: Over the past two weeks, Mr. Trump has fielded complaints from donors about his running mate, JD Vance, as news coverage exploring Mr. Vance’s past statements unearthed — and then exhaustively critiqued — remarks including a lament that America was run by “childless cat ladies.” Mr. Trump dismissed out of hand donors’ suggestions that he replace Mr. Vance on the ticket. But Mr. Trump privately asked his advisers whether they had known about Mr. Vance’s comments about childless women before Mr. Trump chose him. And, at the Aug. 2 fund-raiser, according to two people with knowledge of what took place, when a donor at the round-table discussion asked about Democrats trying to paint the Republican ticket as “weird,” Mr. Trump replied: “Not about me. They’re saying that about JD.”
He’s mad that Kamala Harris is getting more attention & her crowds are bigger: Also unsettling to him: For the first time in Mr. Trump’s political life, his opponent has received more sustained news coverage than he has, beating him at the game of “earned media,” the kind that costs campaigns nothing to produce. Moreover, the coverage of Ms. Harris has overwhelmingly been positive. Ms. Harris “has gotten the equivalent of the largest in-kind contribution of free media I think I have ever seen in all the years I’ve been doing presidential campaigns,” said Tony Fabrizio, the Trump campaign’s chief pollster.
Trump’s internal polling is hilariously bad too: He has also peppered his advisers with questions about whether Ms. Harris can sustain her momentum, constantly asking what new polling shows. Others are more concerned about what they are seeing in private polling. Two private polls conducted in Ohio recently by Republican pollsters — which Mr. Trump carried in 2020 with 53 percent of the vote — showed him receiving less than 50 percent of the vote against Ms. Harris in the state, according to a person with direct knowledge of the data.
“Not about me. They’re saying that about JD.” LMAO. Vance is definitely the reason why the “weird” attack is landing so well. Vance is a weirdo. He’s a creep, he’s a stalker, he’s awkward and a charisma vacuum. He also says terrible things and he has a long history of saying offensive things about women. It anything, the “weird” label is being kind. But it lands so well because Trump is also a f–king weirdo and a creep. Like attracts like, birds of a feather. Trump’s weird orange makeup, his weird obsession with crowd sizes, his lies, his sexual predations, he’s just a very weird and gross old man. His selection of Vance just highlights all of that.
As for Trump calling Harris a “bitch” and the campaign saying no, he would never – there’s already a video of Trump’s fat ass slumped in a golf cart, calling Harris a “f–king bitch.” A lot of people are making the bold (?) prediction that before Election Day, Trump is probably going to call her the n-word. Probably at one of the debates?
Trump calling Kamala Harris a “fucking bitch” is hilarious because that’s going to be his nickname in prison pic.twitter.com/zATECzbJww
— I Smoked RFK Jr’s Bear (@BlackKnight10k) August 10, 2024
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Cover Images.