Deep into his ranting news conference on Thursday, former President Donald Trump told a truth that explained everything : “I’m very angry at her.”
He was referring to Vice President Kamala Harris, whose late entry into the general election race has left him bitter, disoriented, and mourning the loss of the old campaign — the one he was winning against President Joe Biden.
Trump’s discombobulation was laid bare in a self-pitying and raging stream of consciousness delivered at his New Jersey golf club that raised serious questions about the future trajectory of his quest to return to power.
The ex-president insulted his way into the Oval Office in 2016 — when his often-unhinged soliloquies that shattered all the rules of decorum and politics delighted grassroots Republican voters craving an anti-establishment revolution. But eight years on, the now-familiar act is getting tired, a reality that’s been thrown into sharp relief now that Trump is facing a new campaign against younger, more energetic opponent rather than a re-run agains 81-year-old Biden.
The former president is driving his strategists to distraction by refusing to stay focused on the issues — like the economy — that could help him prevail in November. He keeps missing chances to prod Harris’ vulnerabilities, allowing the vice president the space to power up her campaign and erase Biden’s polling deficits.
Another bizarre public performance
Almost every Trump event now feels like damage control for a previous one that went off the rails. Thursday’s news conference was a do-over for Wednesday’s trip to North Carolina, when the ex-president mocked his own aides for demanding that he give an “intellectual” speech on the economy and instead went his own way, focusing on insulting his opponent.
Trump’s team did their best for him on Thursday. Someone went to a local supermarket and stocked up on groceries, including Cheerios, tubs of coffee and ketchup, and provided Trump with charts showing the high cost of goods in the Biden era. But their boss didn’t even get to the end of his first point before veering into a furious aside while falsely accusing Democrats of acting illegally by replacing Biden with Harris. “It was a coup by people that wanted him out, and they didn’t do it the way, not the way they’re supposed to do it. $129 more on energy, and $241 more. This is all per month on rent,” Trump said, running two thoughts together in his fury.
As if trying to keep himself on course, the former president sometimes followed with his finger on the text of his remarks inside a ring binder. But the argument going on in his head and the text on the paper again diverged. “We have wars breaking out in the Middle East. We have the horrible war going on with Ukraine and Russia. All these things would have never happened if I was president. Would have never, ever happened, and they didn’t happen. Since Harris took office, car insurance is up 55%,” Trump said, in another dizzying shift in direction. As his remarks stretched into a second hour, a squadron of flies assembled, likely attracted by several packs of breakfast sausages sweating in the summer heat. The bizarre spectacle only heightened the incongruity of using Trump’s private golf club as the backdrop for an event meant to illustrate the pain faced by millions of Americans at grocery checkouts.
The former president bristled when asked about advice from prominent Republicans — including his former primary foe Nikki Haley, that he should turn from personal attacks on Harris towards the issues many voters care about. Trump also seemed almost wounded at the mockery by Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
“As far as the personal attacks, I’m very angry at her because of what she’s done to the country. I’m very angry at her that she weaponized the justice system against me and other people —- very angry at her,” Trump said. “I think I’m entitled to personal attacks. I don’t have a lot of respect for her. I don’t have a lot of respect for her intelligence, and I think she’ll be a terrible president.”
The former president still has millions of devoted supporters. And he remains in striking distance of one of the most stunning comebacks in American politics and becoming only the second defeated one-term president to return to office. And while his outrageous behavior is exactly the reason many of his followers love him, it risks further alienating moderate, suburban swing state voters who cost him the 2020 election and will be vital in what is shaping up as a close fight.
New questions about Trump’s fitness for office
The mangling of Trump’s rhetoric throughout his news conference eloquently expressed the utter rage that has been evident in all of the public appearances since Biden left the race, and Harris transformed it with big enthusiastic rallies and huge crowds.
After Biden was effectively pushed out of the race after a disastrous debate performance validated fears of voters about his acuity and capacity to serve a second term, Trump’s inability to focus is raising questions about his own fitness for a return to office.
“Donald Trump is not the Donald Trump of 2016, he seemed slowed down, he seems meandering, he seems low energy and he really is struggling to make a point,” said former Trump White House communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin, who broke with the ex-president after he refused to accept his defeat in 2020. “He is somebody who is not performing at the caliber he once was and that might have worked when he was up against Joe Biden — the contrast did make him appear at times stronger and more vibrant. It’s not working against Kamala Harris who is the younger candidate and the one with more energy,” she said on CNN’s “AC360.”
Scott Jennings, a CNN political commentator, who worked in the George W. Bush White House, approved of Trump’s impulse in taking about high food prices that are hounding many Americans. But he told Anderson Cooper that Trump had gone “way off the beaten path” in his news conference. “He’s the only one who can make the decision to get focused and stay focused … it’s really on his shoulders because he is the star of the show.” Jennings added that Trump is “going to have to decide how comfortable he is doing it that way for the rest of the election.”
The former president, however, is showing no signs that he is ready to listen to advice, telling reporters “Now you’ll say he ranted and raved … I’m a very calm person, believe it or not.”
But proving the opposite, Trump on Thursday dove down multiple rabbit holes — venting about Hillary Clinton’s emails as if he had been transported back to the 2016 election, relating bizarre conversations with people calling him “Sir,” musing about “bird cemeteries” he claims are caused by wind farms, lauding his own “great relationship” with China’s President Xi Jinping and fuming at prosecutors who charged him with seeking to overturn the 2020 election and of hoarding classified documents.
The Harris rollout
The Harris campaign is relishing the spectacle of Trump’s almost daily meltdowns. After the New Jersey appearance, the vice president’s team released what is said was a “Statement on Trump’s … Whatever that was.”
The poignancy of Biden’s eclipse by the Harris campaign was on display Thursday when the president and the vice president appeared at a joint formal event for the first time since he shelved his reelection bid. Harris led pro-Biden cheers in suburban Maryland as the pair highlighted a landmark deal with big pharmaceutical firms that will cut the cost of certain drugs for seniors. “It is my eternal and great, great, great honor, I have to tell you, to serve with this most extraordinary human being and American and leader, our president, Joe Biden,” she said.
Biden appeared moved by his reception and declared that Harris would make “one hell of a president.” The event underscored how the vice president is seeking to share credit for some of the Biden administration’s greatest successes even as she seeks to frustrate Trump’s effort to tie her to the policies that helped fuel inflation and to exploit the economic frustration of many working Americans.
On Friday, the vice president is due to deliver an economic speech in North Carolina that will be seen as a reply to the former president’s remarks in the critical swing state on Wednesday. She is expected to propose new restrictions to thwart what she views as price gouging by supermarket giants and a plan to lower housing costs including $25,000 in down payment assistance for first time homebuyers. The thematic backdrop of the new plans appears to be a populist effort to portray Harris as a lifelong champion of working Americans against powerful wealthy corporate interests. As the vice president and former prosecutor and senator put it in highlighting the pharmaceutical deal: “My entire career, I have worked to hold bad actors accountable and lower the cost of prescription drugs.”
But the mechanics of Harris’ plans will be controversial — critics are already accusing her of backing the kind of price controls that have often worked poorly elsewhere. There is therefore plenty of scope for Trump to advance effective arguments against his new opponent. Yet an ex-president who has always believed he’s his own best advocate, now seems to lack the coherence to do so.
“I have to do it my way,” Trump said Thursday.
