Donald Trump has never lacked confidence, but the extraordinary events of the past month have sent his presidential campaign into a tailspin, and he suddenly looks older, more uneasy and directionless.
The assassination attempt, Joe Biden’s sudden withdrawal from the White House race and his replacement by his young, energetic Vice President Kamala Harris – all have had a devastating effect on a candidate who, until recently, seemed poised for victory in November.
President Biden’s outing has been particularly impressive, as he has eliminated an opponent whose age, faltering speech and physical frailties at 81 had largely shielded Trump from scrutiny over his own age and frailty.
Now it’s the 78-year-old Trump, the oldest presidential candidate in history, and the subject of comparison, the 59-year-old former prosecutor who has risen sharply to the forefront.
Trump is “very nervous” as he meets with aides looking for a new campaign story, said Anthony Scaramucci, who briefly served as Trump’s White House communications director in 2017 before the two had a falling out.
“He’s scared now, he’s surrounded now, and he’s very angry,” Scaramucci told MSNBC.
‘Stop crying’
Trump’s campaign managers reportedly want their candidate to focus on issues such as immigration and inflation that affect his base.
And while Trump discusses these topics at length during his long and often ambiguous public appearances, he repeatedly focuses on personal insults, questioning Harris’s intelligence, attacking her racial identity and calling her a “communist.”
Republicans including Nikki Haley, whom Trump defeated in the primaries but who later endorsed him, say such attacks serve to demonize undecided voters, whom Trump needs to win over.
“Quit whining about that,” Haley said on Fox News, urging Trump to stop focusing on who brings the most people to his campaign rallies.
“Talking about crowd size is not going to win a campaign,” he said.
But Trump’s long list of grievances has only grown — “They’re not treating me well,” he complained recently — as momentum has shifted toward Harris, who is denying Trump an edge in states that are likely to decide the November election.
Sensing an opportunity, the Harris campaign has sought to portray Trump as a reclusive, angry and bitter man.
“Donald Trump will make absurd remarks,” said a mock promotion for a Trump campaign event on Thursday, promising “another self-obsessed speech filled with his personal grievances.”
Thursday’s event was described as a press conference focused on Trump’s economic agenda.
Trump initially continued his message while standing in front of tables stacked with supermarket goods meant to demonstrate the household cost of inflation — head bowed, and reading examples of product price increases listed in a binder.
But he then repeatedly veered off topic, talking about wind turbines that kill birds, then talking about crowd size and launching into derogatory personal comments about Harris.
Elizabeth Bennion, a political science professor at Indiana University, told AFP that while the politics of resentment may play well with his base, “it’s unclear how Trump’s personal attacks against Harris will play with undecided swing voters.”
“Some observers wonder whether Trump will exercise restraint when facing a multi-racial female candidate,” Bennion said. “The answer is clearly no.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
