He’s Coming Undone

Instead of course correcting, Trump is continuing to unravel and step in it.

The Harris/Walz campaign said it best in describing Donald Trump’s latest announcement for yet another “press conference” to be held outside his Bedminster, NJ mansion. Harris/Walz advised the media, “TODAY: Donald Trump to Ramble Incoherently and Spread Dangerous Lies in Public, but at Different Home.”

Poking fun at his most recent, easily disprovable claim that Harris/Walz rallies have no one in attendance and the images are all AI-generated, the Democratic ticket noted drily, “These remarks will not be artificial intelligence, but they certainly will lack intelligence.”

They were right to call this out. On Thursday, Trump had delivered a speech “on the economy” before supporters in Ashville, NC. Here’s an excerpt published by The New Yorker. And no, it’s not satire.

Rather than take questions from the press at Bedminster, Trump spoke uninterrupted for over 30 minutes, finally causing CNN to abandon its live coverage. Wolf Blitzer cut away, saying, “It’s been going on for almost a half-hour so far, an opening statement that what was supposed to be a news conference so far, he hasn’t answered one question, hasn’t taken any questions.”

Perhaps the most ironic moment came when Trump was warning of a collapse in the stock market under Harris as the Fox stock ticker showed the Dow broke past 40,000 and was up 500 points.

Fox then quickly removed the stock ticker from the screen.

If you’re wondering what all those groceries were doing behind Trump, he wasn’t about to play Millionaire Price Is Right. He had put them there apparently to draw attention to higher food prices and inflation, even as reports put inflation below three percent, but then forgot that they were there and barely discussed them. When he finally remembered his props, he turned to them and remarked, “But look at this! What a nice job. I think I’m going to take some back to my cottage and have a lot of fun. Like the Cheerios. I haven’t seen Cheerios in a long time.”

Huh?

Then news broke that he was hiring back his disgraced former 2016 campaign chair, Corey Lewandowski, as a “senior adviser” for the 2024 race. Trump had fired Lewandowski in 2021 from a super PAC that was supposed to help get Trump reelected. Per the New York Times, the firing occurred “after a Trump donor accused Mr. Lewandowski of making unwanted sexual advances at an event.” Lewandowski is probably best known for dating Hope Hicks and then leaking domestic violence allegations about her next boyfriend, and for reportedly having a “yearslong affair” with Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota, who had billed herself as a God-fearing woman.

The addition of Lewandowski at this critical moment for the campaign has signaled to many that Trump himself believes it is floundering and wants to shake things up, perhaps by pushing out Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita at the top of the campaign staff. Maybe he wants back that winning feeling from 2016 and plans to reassemble the old gang. The Lincoln Project’s Rick Wilson, a former GOP campaign consultant, had the most colorful take on this.

And just when it seemed the news couldn’t get any worse, Trump found a way to make it so. Yesterday, wealthy GOP megadonor Miriam Adelson, the widow of Sheldon Adelson who had pledged around $100 million for Trump’s reelection, introduced Trump at an event last night. He lauded her and spoke extemporaneously, which is always a big risk.

“I watched Sheldon sitting so proud in the White House when we gave Miriam the Presidential Medal of Freedom,” Trump said, not fazed by the idea of bestowing the cherished honor to a big donor. “That’s the highest award you can get as a civilian. It’s the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor,” Trump continued. He was referring to the Medal of Honor—the highest military honor bestowed for valor in combat, which is often mistakenly called the Congressional Medal of Honor.

“But civilian version, it’s actually much better because everyone [who] gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, they’re soldiers. They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they’re dead,” Trump said, not understanding how poorly this would play. “She gets it, and she’s a healthy, beautiful woman, and they’re rated equal, but she got the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and she got it for—and that’s through committees and everything else.”

To say veterans, including many Republicans, exploded in anger is an understatement. Here’s a taste of the blowback so far.

Even among many conservative Republicans, this was just too much.

VoteVets put it together well:

It isn’t a one-off insult of our Troops and our Veterans. It started when he got out of Vietnam by lying about bone spurs, continued on when he tried to kick Veteran vendors off of 5th Avenue, insulted John McCain, insulted Gold Star Families, called our fallen suckers and losers, refused to go to a military cemetery, told the military to stop having wounded warriors perform at ceremonies because “nobody wants to see that.” It isn’t just that Donald Trump doesn’t respect Veterans and their sacrifice. It’s that Donald Trump hates Veterans and their sacrifice, because he looks so small in comparison to them.

Republican attacks upon Tim Walz’s long service record are likely to continue to fall flat in the face of moments like this from the Harris campaign’s best surrogate out there, Donald Trump. Just over 80 days remain in the campaign, and early and mail-in voting will soon begin in key swing states such as Pennsylvania. Trump did better in the polls when he was just playing golf and not committing these types of errors before important voting groups.

But I’m sure Corey Lewandowski will bring some discipline and focus back to the campaign, right?

Happy Schadenfriday!

Jay