Current Events > NYT: Inside the Worst 3 Weeks of Donald Trump's 2024 Campaign (total disaster)

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/10/us/politics/trump-campaign-election.html

The Aug. 2 dinner at the Bridgehampton, N.Y., home of Howard Lutnick, the Cantor Fitzgerald chief executive, was a high-powered affair. Among the roughly 130 people who dined under an air-conditioned tent were some of Donald Trumps wealthiest supporters, including the billionaire hedge-fund financier Bill Ackman, who sat next to the former president, and Omeed Malik, the president of another fund, 1789 Capital.

Some guests hoped Mr. Trump would signal that he was recalibrating after a series of damaging mistakes. He did not.

Before the dinner, answering a question that voiced concerns about the upcoming election during a small round-table discussion inside Mr. Lutnicks house, Mr. Trump said, Weve got to stop the steal, reviving yet again his false claims about the 2020 election claims that his advisers have urged him to drop because they dont help him with swing voters.

According to two people present, Mr. Trump himself also brought up his remark, made two days earlier at a gathering of the National Association of Black Journalists, in which he had questioned Vice President Kamala Harriss racial identity.

It had been a display of flagrant race-baiting that was egregious even by Mr. Trumps standards, and it instantly reprogrammed Americas TV news chyrons: He falsely claimed that Ms. Harris had only recently decided to identify as Black for political purposes.

But Mr. Trump showed no regret. I think I was right, he told the rattled donors that Friday night.

Later, at dinner under the tent, Harrison LeFrak, the scion of a New York real-estate family, whose father is an old friend of Mr. Trumps, 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.

The fund-raiser came amid a stretch of flailing and self-harm that began after President Bidens July 21 withdrawal from the race and endorsement of Ms. Harris to succeed him. Close Trump allies have described this as the rockiest period of Mr. Trumps campaign and 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.

Since then, Mr. Trump has picked fights with allies publicly and privately, including a broadside against Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia at an Atlanta rally the kind of meanspirited public attack on a popular Republican that his own allies believe helped sink two Senate races in Georgia in January 2021 and could harm Mr. Trump in the state, a vital battleground in November.

At the Aug. 2 dinner, Mr. Trump told donors that the news media had been incorrectly suggesting that he had mellowed since the assassination attempt. Im not nicer, he said, according to one person in attendance.

Another said Mr. Trump described himself as angry, because they unspecified adversaries that the attendee took to mean Democrats had first tried to bankrupt him and then to kill him.

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.

Over the past two weeks, Mr. Trump has fielded complaints from donors about his running mate, JD Vance, as news coverage exploring Mr. Vances 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. Vances 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. Theyre saying that about JD.

Mr. Trump didnt reveal any loss of confidence in Mr. Vance. Rather, he offered him simple advice: Attack, attack, attack. And Mr. Trump has been impressed over the past week as Mr. Vance attacked Ms. Harris and her new running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, on the campaign trail praising him and taking credit for scouting him, according to two people who have spoken to Mr. Trump. They said Mr. Trump had described Mr. Vance as a great political athlete.

Mr. Trump has seemed to want to wish his new situation away. He claimed on Truth Social, without evidence, that Mr. Biden regretted his decision to drop out and wanted to undo it. He has talked repeatedly about how badly he thinks Democrats mistreated Mr. Biden. He has complained about how unfair it is that hes had to start the race over again. He has vented about wasting time, energy and millions of dollars on Mr. Biden only to find himself facing a new opponent for the final 100-day sprint.

And Mr. Trump told one aide that Democrats were trying to steal the election again from him comparing the reshuffling of the Democratic ticket to when state legislatures changed voting rules midway through the 2020 election cycle because of the Covid pandemic.

He has also peppered his advisers with questions about whether Ms. Harris can sustain her momentum, constantly asking what new polling shows.

Soon after Ms. Harris replaced Mr. Biden atop the Democratic ticket, Mr. Fabrizio, the Trump pollster, stressed to the campaign staff that the polls would get worse before they got better. Mr. Fabrizio has insisted, though, that the race has not fundamentally changed, that once voters are educated about Ms. Harriss liberal record on crime and her role in Mr. Bidens unpopular policies especially on immigration they will sour on her.

Mr. Fabrizio has predicted to campaign colleagues that Ms. Harris will have another two to three good weeks, through the Democratic National Convention, and then her poll numbers will turn in the other direction.

Mr. Trump has called her fake but in self-defeating ways, like questioning whether Ms. Harris, who is Black, is Black.

Outside advisers and allies have also called Mr. Trump to impress on him the political peril of continuing with those kinds of attacks. Kellyanne Conway, who managed his 2016 campaign, recently told Mr. Trump to stick to policy contrasts, rather than personal attacks, and to treat Ms. Harris as a formidable adversary, as he had Mrs. Clinton.

That advice has gone unheeded. At his news conference on Thursday in Palm Beach, Fla., Mr. Trump again attacked Ms. Harris as nasty, denigrated her intellect and said she was very disrespectful to both her Black and Indian heritages.

Mr. Trumps mood improved a little in recent days, people who have spoken with him said, after Ms. Harris named Mr. Walz her running mate. He had become convinced that she would choose Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, and that Mr. Shapiro could help her carry a must-win state. On Fox and Friends, Mr. Trump called Mr. Walz a shocking pick, adding, I could not be more thrilled.

This campaign is dead.

Glad NYT is finally an accepted source again. I remember them and CNN getting attacked a lot on CE if someone linked to them a couple weeks ago.

Literally already saying "Stop the steal 2024" for when he loses

lmao

NYT? Reporting against Trump?

That's bewildering.

Turtlemayor333 posted...

Literally already saying "Stop the steal 2024" for when he loses

lmao

he started saying it about the same time before the 2020 election as well. It may seem funny now, but its gonna get ugly after the election

BlueTigerLion posted...

Glad NYT is finally an accepted source again. I remember them and CNN getting attacked a lot on CE if someone linked to them a couple weeks ago.

They're not Fox News or OAN level bad, but they've been carrying water for Trump a lot lately by giving excessive coverage to the "Biden old" garbage, and treating Trump too much like a normal, legitimate candidate. Like after that disaster of a press conference, where Trump's ramblings barely ever made any sense, their political commentator had this to say:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/4/4714b0b7.jpg

They spent months treating Biden like he had dementia, but then Trump rambles incoherently for an hour and that's what they have to say?

Still, it's good to finally see them showing a little bit of journalistic integrity here.

They're covering a situation they can't pretend is good for him, but verry charitably. Note that he is said to have claimed "without evidence" that Biden rejected dropping out. Contrast that with how uncritically claims about Democrats "trying to kill him" and Harris' "liberal record on crime" are passed on, both of which are completely ass backwards if you're paying attention.

Diceheist posted...

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. Theyre saying that about JD.

nah dude, you're pretty fuckin' weird