Has Trump Lost His Mind

The Former President Remains A Potent Force In Republican Politics

• Losing Support: Nearly half of G.O.P. voters prefer someone other than Donald J. Trump for president in 2024, a Times/Siena College poll showed.
• Trump-Pence Split: An emerging rivalry between Mr. Trump and Mike Pence, his former vice president, reveals Republicans enduring divisions.

For Mr. Trump, bleeding that amount of Republican support would represent a sharp increase compared with the already troubling level of the partys vote he shed during his last race.

In 2020, 9 percent of Republicans voted for someone other than Mr. Trump, while Mr. Biden lost just 4 percent of Democrats, according to AP VoteCast, a large study of the 2020 electorate by NORC at the University of Chicago for The Associated Press.

Kenneth Abreu, a 62-year-old pharmaceutical executive from Pennsylvania, said he had voted Republican for three decades but would support Mr. Biden instead of voting again for Mr. Trump.

Unlike all these other people who believe every word he says, Im done, Mr. Abreu said. All the garbage hes been talking about, the lies, Jan. 6, the whole thing I just lost all respect for him.

How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.

Fact Check: Clip Of Trump Lost And Disoriented Has Been Selectively Cropped

3 Min Read

A video on social media allegedly shows President Donald Trump walking in a disoriented manner and staring at a puddle at the White House lawn. The clip is misleading. The footage is from 2019 and has been cropped to make him appear confused when in fact he seems to be ushering his wife away from the water.

The video has been shared thousands of times on Twitter and Facebook, drawing mockery, as seen here , here , here and here .

One post here reads: Trump is lost & disoriented here. His mind goes blank and he doesnt remember what hes supposed to do next. Hes deep into his degenerative neurological disease – Frontotemporal Dementia – mindlessly lumbering and zigzagging in the grass towards a puddle. #TrumpIsNotWell”

The 12-second clip starts with Trump waving and walking away from reporters and ends abruptly with him standing next to a puddle.

A longer version of the footage provides more context . Reuters footage of the moment is also visible here .

The video captures Trumps remarks to the media before departing for Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Texas on Aug. 7, 2019, to meet victims and first responders of two deadly shootings.

After speaking to reporters, Trump walked away to meet with First Lady Melania Trump. He stood next to the puddle and, for a brief moment, pointed at it, apparently so his wife would not step into the water. The president and first lady then walk together to board the Marine One helicopter.

White House: Trump ‘furious Disgusted’ Over ‘outrageous’ Bannon Comments

Late Wednesday an attorney for Trump threatened Bannon with legal action, accusing him of violating written confidentiality and non-disparagement agreements by talking to Wolff for the book. Lawyer Charles J. Harder said Bannon’s actions “give rise to numerous legal claims including defamation by libel and slander.” In the letter, Harder advised Bannon to stop discussing Trump or his family with any journalists, authors or bloggers.

Harder is best known as the lawyer for Terry Bollea, better known as wrestler Hulk Hogan, in a successful invasion-of-privacy suit that led to the demise of Gawker Media. He also represented Melania Trump in a defamation suit against The Daily Mail that was later settled, and Harder briefly represented disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein in the wake of allegations he sexually harassed and assaulted numerous women.

Bannon broke his day-long silence after Trump’s rebuke while hosting “Breitbart News Tonight” on SiriusXM. “The president of the United States is a great man. You know I support him day in and day out,” Bannon said in response to a caller seeking to defend Bannon from Trump’s attack.

Trump’s harsh comments Wednesday are a 180 degree turn from his prior praise of Bannon, whom he described as a “friend of mine for a long time” during a media availability in the Rose Garden last October. “I have a very good relationship, as you know, with Steve Bannon,” Trump said. “I like Steve a lot.”

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Trump Privately Admitted He Lost Election To Biden: Ex

An ex-aide to former President Trump said Sunday that Trump privately admitted he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden.

Driving the news: Alyssa Farah Griffin, the former White House director of strategic communications, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that Trump “blurted out watching Joe Biden on TV, ‘Can you believe I lost to this guy?'”

The big picture: The Jan. 6 committee seeks to prove in a series of public hearings this month that the former president tried to overturn the election knowing that he lost.

• The former Trump aide is the latest in a series of former White House officials to contradict Trump’s false claim that the election was stolen.

Yes, but: Griffin added that she thinks proving intent will be difficult.

• “I’m not of the mind that this is going to take down Donald Trump in a legal sort of way,” she said. “But I do think it’s going to inform the public about a man who lost and couldn’t do what we’ve done for the entirety of our history, which is allow a peaceful transition of power.”

What’s next: The Jan. 6 committee will meet for another public hearing on Tuesday at 1pm.

The Only Question Left In The Former Presidents Mind Is When Hell Announce

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Donald Trump was impeached twice, lost the 2020 election by 7,052,770 votes, is entangled in investigations by federal prosecutors and the District of Columbia attorney general and the Manhattan district attorney and the New York State attorney general and the Westchester County district attorney and the Fulton County, Georgia, district attorney and the Securities and Exchange Commission and the House Select Committee on January 6 , yet on Monday, July 11, he was in a fantastic mood.

It was a beautiful day in Bedminster, New Jersey, where the former president maintains a golf club and private estate to which he decamps when the Palm Beach humidity and the habits of snowbirds shut down Mar-a-Lago for the Mothers DaytoLabor Day summer season, and it had been a beautiful weekend, too, one he said affirmed the choice he had made about his own future, the future of the Republican Party, and whether he wins this time or if he loses as sorely as before the future of the American experiment.

Look, Trump said, I feel very confident that, if I decide to run, Ill win.

The org chart for the pre-campaign is a Jackson Pollock of people hovering nearby or maneuvering in secret or making trips to Bedminster or launching into the ether the notion that they might do this or that job when the time comes. Everybody does their own thing, the adviser said.

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Trump Presidency’s Final Days: ‘in His Mind He Will Not Have Lost’

As the Trump White House reaches its final days, an eerie quiet has descended on the premises as attempts to challenge the election result founder in the courts.

Brian Morgenstern, the deputy communications director, was wearing a jacket with a White House emblem in his office in the West Wing. The jacket was zipped all the way up, as if he were on his way out. The room, a few doors away from the Oval Office, was dark, with the shades drawn.

His boss, the president, was in another part of the White House. In that moment, Donald Trump was on speaker phone with Rudy Giuliani, the head of his legal effort to challenge the election, and a group of state lawmakers who had gathered for a “hearing”, as they put it, at a hotel in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

“This election was rigged and we can’t let that happen,” the president said on the phone.

Morgenstern was monitoring the event on his computer screen, in a distracted manner. A moment later he swivelled in his chair and spoke to a visitor about college, real estate, baseball, and, almost as an afterthought, the president’s achievements.

Trump’s effort to contest the election results in Pennsylvania failed on Friday, not long after the so-called hearing, and even that had a shaky legal foundation. An appeals court judge said there was “no basis” for his challenge. A certification of ballots showed President-elect Joe Biden won the state by more than 80,000 votes.

“You’re walking on egg shells. Nobody wants to say the wrong thing.”

Why Has Donald Trump Lost So Much Conservative Support

• edited by Ellie Shockley

Donald Trump has lost the support of many conservatives, a problem that may be explained by his lack of conscientiousness. This trait is more characteristic of conservatives than liberals, which makes it a critical trait for conservative candidates. In the case of Trump, a lack of conscientiousness has likely repelled conservative voters who would otherwise vote Republican in the presidential election. Nevertheless, Trump maintains some support among conservatives, and this support may arise from his right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation.

Trump is not only losing, but losing by a large margin, an indication that he is not only unpopular among moderates, but also among a fair share of conservatives. This lack of conservative support is evident in some solidly right-wing states. In South Carolina, for instance, where 43% of people identify as conservative, and Georgia, where 40% do so, the conservative candidate usually wins. However, Trump is likely to win these two states by small margins.

Why is the Trump campaign hemorrhaging conservative voters in the US, who have not been this skeptical of a Republican Party candidate since Barry Goldwater? A number of factors play into his unpopularity, and while psychological research on conservatives cannot tell us about all of them, it can explain at least one.

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Trump Breaks With Bannon Saying He Has Lost His Mind

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WASHINGTON President Trump excommunicated his onetime chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, from his circle on Wednesday, ending for now a partnership of convenience that transformed American politics while raising questions about the future of the nationalist-populist movement they cultivated together.

The rupture came after Mr. Bannon was quoted in a new book disparaging the presidents children, asserting that Donald Trump Jr. had been treasonous in meeting with Russians and calling Ivanka Trump dumb as a brick. Mr. Trump, described by his spokeswoman as furious, disgusted, fired back by saying that Mr. Bannon had lost his mind.

In a , the president excoriated Mr. Bannon as a self-promoting exaggerator who had very little to do with our historic victory in the 2016 presidential election and was only in it for himself. Rather than representing Mr. Trumps hard-core political base or supporting his agenda to make America great again, Mr. Bannon was simply seeking to burn it all down, the president said.

While Mr. Trump had remained in touch with Mr. Bannon after pushing him out of the White House over the summer, the two now appear to have reached a breaking point. Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my presidency, Mr. Trump said. When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind.

The President Isn’t Just A Huckster An Exaggerator Or A Liar It’s So Much Worse Than That

AP Photo/Alex Brandon

President Trump is a showman and always has been. Even as a real estate developer with no designs on politics, he understood that exaggeration, hyperbole, or let’s not mince words outright lying were tools he could use to sell his buildings and himself. Every project was the biggest, the best, the most luxurious, the most sought-after, whether it really was or not. It even extended to things like claiming Trump Tower is 68 stories tall when the real number is 58. If it moves units, that’s all that matters.

But when we say that someone is lying, we presume that they know they’re lying. That’s what distinguishes the “lie” from the “falsehood” or the “untruth.” You can unwittingly tell a falsehood, but if you lie it means you knew what you were doing. Or to quote the philosopher George Costanza, “It’s not a lie if you believe it.”

This has always been a tricky issue with Trump, because there are some false claims he keeps making long after it’s been repeatedly pointed out to him that they’re false, and others where it’s hard to tell whether he knows they’re false or not. Beneath it all is the unavoidable conclusion that he just doesn’t care, in part because his experience has taught him that there’s no cost to him for being caught in a lie. After all, he got elected president, didn’t he?

And then there’s this, from The New York Times:

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Have We Lost Trump Or Has Trump Lost His Mind

Over the years, Joe Biden has been accused of lots of bad things. There was the plagiarism thing, then there was something else, whatever it was. More recently, hes been accused of using his son Hunter to make all kinds of unsavory and corrupt deals.

But the biggest crime that Joe commits virtually every day, is a crime which, to paraphrase my late, dear friend Jimmy Breslin, is the single, worst crime that any politician can ever commit Joes a bore. Hes so boring that when he talks, he seems to be putting himself to sleep.

Now the fact that hes boring us to tears and getting things done at the same time, happens to be the reason he beat the sh*t out of Trump last year. Because what Americans were looking for was a President who, faced with a national, public health emergency, could actually get something done.

The problem with Trump is that he didnt get anything done. Remember how he was going to replace Obamacare with a better health plan? Remember how he was going to make Mexico pay for his facockta wall?

But at least to Trumps credit, he never was a bore. In fact, his entire Presidency consisted of him shooting his mouth off, and the crazier and extreme were his statements, the more they always were then broadcast over the evening TV news.

Here was his answer in full when he was asked about the current spike in Covid-19:

Oh well, oh well. Back to boring old Joe.

Justice Department Releases Mueller

GOP officials, aides and media personalities who have spoken to him say Trump is frustrated but cheerful. He has looked for help to bolster his legal team but found no takers. At the same time, he has reveled in seeing parades of MAGA supporters in front of his properties, as well as Fox News pundits and Republican members of Congress largely rushing to his defense. He also has been buoyed by the belief that the FBIs search of his home will benefit him politically. His political action committee has raised prodigiously off of the matter dashing off at least 22 fundraising emails with the word raided in them since the search happened on Aug. 8.

One thing Trump hasnt done much of since the FBI search is appear in public. While aides and family members have hit the television circuit, Trump has not. He gave one brief interview to Fox News digital and his first public appearance since the search isnt until early September, when he holds a Save America rally in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Trumps response to the FBI search is, to a degree, a reflection of his current station in politics. He has been in political vise grips before. And even though his own circle of advisers and allies recognize that the man famous for getting himself ensnared in nasty legal entanglements is suddenly in uncharted waters, there is a sense that this, too, can be navigated.

The question awaiting everyone is whether or when he will hold a rally for his own run.

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Joe Biden Would Not Be Disappointed For Rematch Against Donald Trump In 2024

We should start with the fact that Donald Trump is going to run again, the report said.

There has been ongoing speculation about Trumps presidential goals, including whether he would announce on the Fourth of July.

But Trump, who launched his 2016 presidential bid by riding down an escalator in Trump Tower, dismissed the idea that he would even consider using the nations birthday as a backdrop, calling the reports fake news.

I dont think we have to compete with that, he told New York. First of all, a lot of people arent around on the Fourth of July. Its not a great time to do an announcement. I never said I was going to. That was just fake news. Somebody said that I was going to. I dont think it was any of our people.

Trump also said in the interview that he wasnt worried about other Republicans mostly notably Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis who might challenge him in a Republican primary.

He discounted DeSantis, who has been making headlines in the Sunshine State over his opposition to coronavirus restrictions, as a rival.

I dont feel that. I endorsed Ron, he was at 3, and as soon as I endorsed him, he went to first place, he was not going to win, Trump said, moments later clarifying that he was referring to DeSantis running for governor.

No, I meant when he ran for governor, as you know, he was running and then he came to me for an endorsement because he was not, you know, he was at 3 percent, Trump said.