“Something in Him Broke”: Ex–Trump Ally Warns He’s Totally Lost It
With less than two weeks until Election Day, former Trump allies are sounding the alarm that Donald Trump isn’t the same man they knew.
Speaking with Kaitlan Collins on CNN’s The Source Thursday night, former Trump White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews agreed that the Republican presidential nominee had become “unstable” and no longer resembled the man who captured the nation’s attention when he descended a golden escalator at Trump Tower in 2015.
“That’s been my warning to Republican voters out there,” Matthews told Collins. “This isn’t the same man that I worked for. I think that something in him broke in the 2020 election. He was unable to accept that loss and he started to unravel.”
Matthews argued that Trump, who at the start of his political career ran on a vision to “Make America Great Again,” has since devolved into a far-right ideologue “hell-bent on revenge and retribution.”
“She’s focused on solutions; he’s focused on petty arguments and getting revenge on people,” Matthews said, comparing Trump to Vice President Kamala Harris.
While Trump’s politics have taken a turn for the violent, the 78-year-old’s mental acuity has also slipped, with the onetime bully struggling to avoid verbal gaffes during his public appearances. And the glitches continue: Speaking at a Turning Point Action event in Las Vegas on Thursday, Trump seemingly misfired as he attempted to speak about his plan to strip taxes from tips, instead offering up a jumbled word salad while trying to cover his tracks.
“Increasing the so-called tipola—you know she, she, she wants to—when I said no tax on tips, remember?” Trump told the crowd.
Trump: "Increasing the so-called tipola--- you know she she" pic.twitter.com/FpPl5D966M
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 25, 2024
In recent weeks, Trump has dodged mainstream news appearances, including going so far as to break election tradition by refusing to sit for a 60 Minutes interview in September, which he reportedly backed out of last-minute over fears that the rigorous show would fact-check him.
Instead, Trump has relegated his TV appearances to friendlier, more sycophantic networks, including Fox News, whose anchor Maria Bartiromo did not interrupt or correct Trump when he claimed that the real Election Day threat is the “enemy from within” while suggesting that the military should forcibly involve itself in handling the election results.