Donald Trump is “lightening up” on his campaign staff as he retreats to Mar-a-Lago following his “terrible” decision to pick JD Vance as vice president, insiders have revealed.
The former president’s alleged collapse has been revealed by sources close to Trump as he continues to slide in the polls following the departure of President Joe Biden and the rise of Kamala Harris to the top of the Democratic ticket.
“I think he feels like the election is slipping away from him, and that’s where you see him slipping further and further,” Sarah Matthews, a former Trump spokesperson, told MSNBC.
Republicans and major donors are concerned about Trump’s failed strategy, as he remains obsessed with fringe theories instead of focusing on core issues like the border, the economy and crime.
Anthony Scaramucci, who has close ties to Trump’s inner circle, revealed that the former president is not marching en masse through the swing states because “he’s pissed off.”
Donald Trump is egging on his campaign staff as he retreats to Mar-a-Lago following his ‘terrible’ decision to pick JD Vance as vice president, insiders have revealed
“He chose Vance — he knows Vance was a terrible, terrible choice,” Scaramucci said on The Rest is Politics podcast.
“He’s getting people excited about his choice of Vance in his campaign.”
According to the former White House aide, this is typical Trump behavior: when things go wrong, he starts firing people.
According to Scaramucci, Trump had a similar breakdown in August 2016 and “blew everyone away”… that’s when he brought in Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon as advisers.
Trump is reportedly in talks with confidants about firing his campaign managers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, who Scaramucci said are “very talented people.”
While Trump hides out in Mar-a-Lago trying to deflect blame for his downward spiral in the polls, his new opponent is touring the swing states with her newly elected vice president.
“He picked Vance — he knows Vance was a terrible, terrible choice,” Anthony Scaramucci said. “He’s getting people in his campaign excited about picking Vance.”
Shortly before Harris came into the spotlight, the former president had already achieved success after heroically surviving an assassination attempt.
Trump entered the Republican Party convention in Milwaukee in triumph, his popularity and poll numbers soaring… and more importantly, as Biden’s campaign continued to slide toward the point of no return.
It came as no great surprise to anyone that Biden withdrew from the race, and even less surprising that his own vice presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, joined the shortlist.
But after developing a campaign strategy aimed at proving Biden unfit for a second term, Trump and his advisers were unprepared for what would happen if the 81-year-old actually withdrew from the race.
The campaign was thrown into turmoil as Harris soared in popularity, raising $200 million in donations in her first week on the campaign trail and rising steadily in the polls.
Trump is reportedly talking to confidants about firing his campaign managers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles (pictured)
Harris quickly rose to prominence among the liberal media and Gen Z voters.
Her media honeymoon has been going on since she declared her candidacy, but was extended when she picked beloved Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her vice president.
The Harris hype is likely to pick up again in light of the Democratic National Convention, which begins August 19 in Chicago.
Meanwhile, a key Trump ally said Axios“President Trump knows he is the only one who can end the media’s honeymoon with Kamala Harris. He sees a significant opportunity to do so, given that Harris cannot defend her record on inflation and the border.”
“To protect Harris from the media, he knows he has to be very specific about his policy contrasts and he plans to deliver a powerful campaign speech soon.”
But despite Trump allegedly being aware of the message he needs to deliver to prevent Harris’ premature victory, he has instead offered nothing but disparaging criticism of the current vice president.
In a disastrous interview with a group of black journalists in Chicago on July 31, Trump claimed that Harris “happened to be black” a few years ago and that her identity “suddenly changed.”
After attacking Harris for her race, he bizarrely called her “the most beautiful actress who ever lived” in a chaotic livestreamed interview with Elon Musk on Monday.
He describes Harris as “mean and stupid” and continues to insist that her audience does not exist at his own rallies and at Truth Social, which is a blatantly false claim.
Even her fellow party member Nikki Haley, who many hoped Trump would appoint as his vice president, has called for an end to the ridiculous torrent of insults directed at Harris.
Haley called on Trump to make a “serious change” in his campaign strategy in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday.
“I want this campaign to win. But this campaign is not going to win by talking about crowd size. It’s not going to win by talking about what race Kamala Harris is. It’s not going to win by talking about whether she’s stupid. You can’t win by doing those things,” Haley said. “The American people are smart. Treat them like they’re smart.”
Despite urgings from Republicans to stop the crazy reporting, Trump is “struggling to overcome his anger,” a senior Republican source said.
Scaramucci says in the podcast that Trump should limit himself to talking about crime, socialism, borders and the economy to prove that Democrats are “the wrong people for America.”
But according to a Republican source close to Trump, he will have to “convince himself to leave the rest of the gang behind” to get behind the script.
Republican pollster Frank Luntz said Trump has “the problems” on his side, but his “personality” is contributing to his decline in the polls.
“On issues, Trump is much more likely to be successful. On qualities, Harris is much more likely to be successful, because frankly, people like her more than they like him,” Luntz said in an interview with CNN over the weekend.
“If he sees this now, his head will explode. And that’s part of the problem.”
Other Republican sources say Trump’s age of 78 has become a factor in his own downfall, with some even calling him the Biden of the 2024 campaign.
Some agree that Trump is on the verge of collapse.
While Harris’ campaign has certainly improved compared to Biden’s disastrous polls, she and Trump are still neck and neck.
Brand new polls from DailyMail.com show Trump ahead by two points in the presidential race.
Other recent polls show the vice president rapidly gaining popularity, but our survey of 1,001 likely voters shows that 43 percent would vote for Trump if the election were held tomorrow. For Harris, 41 percent would vote.
Last week, however, the Cook Political Report revised its ratings for Georgia, Arizona and Nevada back to a toss-up, after previously labeling those states as “predominantly Republican.”
These states, along with Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, make up the six toss-ups.