Trump's 'last chance': Presidential historian says upcoming date could end campaign hopes
Donald Trump has had fierce competition in the polls ever since Kamala Harris ascended to the top of the Democratic ticket, but a presidential historian said he might have one last chance to regain momentum.
New polling shows the vice president with a five-point lead over the ex-president with a little over six weeks until Election Day, and historian Douglas Brinkley told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that Trump is running out of chances to turn things around.
"Donald Trump is a usurper of democracy, he is a wrecking ball," Brinkley said. "You've been talking, rightfully reminding people of Jan. 6 but the hellscape he has developed of dividing our country. We have a chance to unite, Kamala Harris is doing an incredible job, momentum's [going] her way, and I think it's just getting some more young people engaged, and North Carolina is the state – I know everybody is waiting on Pennsylvania — North Carolina is really interesting that Harris has a chance of winning there."
"But the big moment is Oct. 1," Brinkley said. "It's going to be the most important vice presidential debate, I think, in U.S. history when we put [Tim] Walz against Vance. That's coming our way, and it may be the last chance Trump has, if somehow Vance can score points and get an edge out of that."
Trump was targeted by two apparent assassination attempts over the summer, but Brinkley rejected arguments by the former president and his allies blaming Democrats for calling him a threat to democracy.
"It's nonsense," Brinkley said. "I'm a practicing Catholic, [and] when I see somebody like Donald Trump get shot in the ear or what almost happened at Mar-a-Lago, your prayers go out for him because you honor all humans. But if you are talking about the danger, the inherent danger of Donald Trump – he's radioactive.
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"He wants to come in and gut government because it's rhetoric that sounds good. You start trying to get rid of civil service, collapse the federal government, you are going to find a country in disarray. It's a larger problem that the federal government hasn't educated the public enough to know all the incredible things somebody who works for the Environmental Protection Agency does for clean water, what we do for clean air. We don't talk enough about flight safety, but when you start just willy-nilly saying you're going to wipe out a Department of Education – nobody even knows what that means. To try it and get successful, particularly with the Supreme Court, which Trump sees as a rubber stamp, and with the new prerogative the courts gave them that presidents are above the law."
"We're walking into a doomsday scenario if Trump gets in," Brinkley added. "People better wake up, take the smelling salt and pay attention right now. These next days are going to be fast."
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