The Trump regime is terrified. They know they are going to lose and lose badly.
One week ago President Donald Trump met with advisers from his 2020 re-election campaign, who greeted him with bad news.
The campaign's internal poll numbers showed the president down in swing states, and down with key demographics of voters including women and independents.
The messaging from the White House on the coronavirus pandemic and the growing anger about the brutal killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis was fueling a drop in his numbers. Top aides warned that former Vice President Joe Biden, now the presumptive Democratic nominee, was positioned to defeat the president by a significant number of electoral votes based on the campaign's analysis, according to multiple sources familiar with the meeting.
While some of the president’s advisers insisted the current campaign internal poll numbers aren’t relevant in gauging Trump’s re-election chances this far from November, others among his most loyal and longest serving advisers have developed a new posture: one of increasing alarm. They fear that without a course correction -- and quickly -- Donald Trump could lose the 2020 presidential election.
This account of the president and his advisers' struggle to respond to the ongoing crises and the political fallout is based on conversations with 17 sources including White House officials, campaign advisers and sources close to the president.
As I've said in the last week, Trump is trapped and he's up against three foes that he has no clue how to deal with: a financial depression, a pandemic that he can't gaslight away, and a population that no longer fears his power.
In the wake of the murder of George Floyd on May 25, some White House officials have been lobbying the president to give a formal address to the nation from the Oval Office to show he was taking the death and the growing protests around the country seriously. White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows was in favor of the idea. Meadows believed it was a moment for the president to deliver a message of unity, according to sources familiar with his thinking.
Others, like the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, were against such an address, arguing it could do more harm than good, according to four sources. A source close to Kushner disputed that categorization, saying instead the goal has been to announce a policy initiative that will have an impact.
The president has also been encouraged to participate in listening sessions with African American leaders, as he has hosted previously at the White House. But that idea was rejected by the commander-in-chief, according to sources.
A person who has attended similar events as a guest of the president previously told ABC News they heard from a White House official to "be on standby" for an event with the president, but then nothing ever materialized.
Trump is "not capable of showing empathy here," said the source, who is still a loyal supporter of the president.
Trump is probably the least capable chief executive in the country's history, and he cannot resolve this issue himself using the only tactics he knows. So, he's going to ignore both and head out back on the road next week.
President Donald Trump’s signature campaign rallies are back in business, after a gap of more than three months because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Trump announced on Wednesday that his reelection campaign would be holding a rally in Tulsa, Okla., on June 19 and would also be holding rallies in Florida, Texas and Arizona — as well as an event in North Carolina “at an appropriate time.”
The president made the announcement at a roundtable with African American leaders at the White House, hailing the “great job” that Oklahoma has done combating coronavirus. As of Tuesday, Oklahoma had recorded 353 coronavirus deaths and 7,363 positive cases.
The Tulsa rally next week will be held on Juneteenth, a national commemoration of the end of slavery in the U.S.
Tulsa. On Juneteenth. A century ago, the site of Black Wall Street, destroyed by white racists in one of the deadliest mass lynchings in American history.
Trump will flaunt both COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter with a two-for-one asshole special. I smell Trump Minister of Racial Purity Stephen Miller's taint behind this little maneuver.
And it will be arguably the worst speech of Trump's career.
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