In a blistering assessment, Trump’s advisers explained anonymously why Donald Trump is a haunted old loser candidate who falls for fake news and won’t change.
Axios reports that Trump’s team prepared him for the debate, but he went on stage and promptly blew it.
Here are their reasons why Trump is not fixable:
- He’s haunted. He can’t stand being seen as a loser. So it’s impossible to fully admit he didn’t win in 2020. He looks to distractions like crowd size and adoring coverage for solace. So, seemingly silly taunts — like Harris’ “people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom” — hit deep.
- He falls for fake news. For a guy who made “fake news” a household term, he falls for it often and easily. It wasn’t hard to learn that the allegations of Haitians eating pet dogs and cats were silly and wrong. But far-right activist Laura Loomer was on the plane ride to the debate with him, egging him on.
- He’s old. A wise man told us three types of people never change: Old guys. Rich guys. Guys with their names on the building. So the chances that Trump — a 78-year-old, self-proclaimed billionaire with his name on buildings, bottles and golf courses — will change are, um, nil.
The list above reads like the campaign is trying to distance itself from the impending failure that is the Trump campaign. Trump has always had these weaknesses. Hillary Clinton didn’t know about them or her campaign wasn’t built to take advantage of them in 2016. Joe Biden knew about them and was able to use them in 2020, but the older version of Biden in 2024 wasn’t quick enough on his feet to implement the same strategy.
Kamala Harris is a nightmare matchup for Trump because she is intellectually fast enough to be ahead of Trump’s bluster and box him in. Harris, not Trump, imposed her will and set the tone for the debate.
Trump has never recovered from losing the 2020 election. He can’t mentally cope. Donald Trump is a wounded, broken, unfixable candidate who is chasing ghosts of elections past and only seems to be running to soothe his ego and needs by being in front of an audience.
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Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
