Trump team said to be worried about 'unfixable glitch' that could doom him against Harris
Axios reporters Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei bring word that Trump campaign officials worry that the former president has what is being described by the publication as an "unfixable glitch" that could doom his 2024 presidential campaign.
Essentially, they write, Trump is completely incapable of not taking the bait whenever Vice President Kamala Harris mocks things such as the size of his campaign rally crowds and it completely throws him off message during crucial portions of debates.
Harris successfully deployed this tactic on Tuesday, when she got Trump not only to rant about crowd sizes, but also to push debunked claims about Haitian immigrants eating their neighbors' pets.
In fact, the reporters say that this particular problem goes back even further than his debate performance, as his advisers had urged him to use the failed assassination attempt on him to argue that he had become a "changed man" determined to unite the country.
Trump, it goes without saying, did not heed this advice.
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"Trump knew — and was told — he could walk off the convention stage up double digits in the polls if he exploited the assassination attempt and cut the grievance crap," Allen and VandeHei write. "But just like Tuesday's debate, he simply couldn't help himself. He went on for 60 more rambling minutes in that convention speech, rehashing his greatest grievance hits."
The reporters go on to note that it is highly unlikely that Trump will ever correct his mistakes, both because of his age and because of the MAGA information bubble he has sealed himself in that eliminates any chance of critical information entering his brain.
"All politicians live in self-protective bubbles," they write. "But Trump's, which extends from his social media cocoon to his Mar-a-Lago luxury, is almost impossible to penetrate with hard truths. There's always a Loomer to tell Trump he's winning ... even when he's not."