In a furious press conference on Thursday, former President Donald Trump expressed the truth behind everything: "I am very angry with her."
He was referring to Vice President Kamala Harris, whose late entry into the presidential race has left him bitter, disoriented, and grieving over the defeat of his old campaign—the one where he had won against President Joe Biden.
Trump's confusion was evident in the stream of self-pity and anger he delivered at his golf club in New Jersey, raising serious questions about the future direction of his effort to return to power.
Another bizarre public display
Nearly every event of Trump’s now feels like damage control for a previous event that went off track. Thursday's press conference was a repeat of his trip to North Carolina on Wednesday, where the former president mocked his aides for urging him to give an "intellectual" speech on the economy, only to go his own way, focusing on insulting his opponents.
Trump's team did their best for him on Thursday. Someone had gone to a local supermarket and bought various groceries, including Cheerios, tubs of coffee, and ketchup, and provided Trump with charts showing high costs of goods in the Biden era. But their boss barely made his first point before shifting to anger, falsely accusing Democrats of acting illegally by replacing Biden with Harris. "It was a coup by people who wanted him out, and they didn't do it the way, not the way they were supposed to. Another $129 for energy and another $241. All of these are monthly rent," Trump said, blending two thoughts together in a fit of rage.
As if trying to keep himself on track, the former president occasionally followed the text of his speech inside a binder with his finger. But the argument in his head and the text on paper again diverged. "We have wars breaking out in the Middle East. We have a terrible war with Ukraine and Russia. None of this would have ever happened if I were president. Never, never happened, and they didn't happen. Since Harris took office, car insurance has gone up 55%," Trump said, in yet another dizzying change of direction. As his speech stretched into its second hour, a swarm of flies gathered, perhaps drawn by some packs of breakfast sausages sweating in the summer heat. The bizarre scene only added to the absurdity of using Trump’s private golf club as the setting for an event meant to illustrate the pain millions of Americans face at the grocery checkout.
The former president bristled when asked about advice from prominent Republicans—including his former primary rival Nikki Haley—that he should shift from personal attacks on Harris to issues that resonate with more voters. Trump also seemed almost wounded by the mockery from Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.
“On the personal attacks, I’m very angry with her for what she’s done to the country. I’m very angry with her for weaponizing the justice system against me and others—very angry with her,” Trump said. “I think I have the right to make it personal. I don’t have much respect for her. I don’t have much respect for her intelligence, and I think she will be a terrible president.”
The former president still has millions of loyal supporters. And he remains far from being one of the most remarkable comebacks in U.S. politics and becoming the second president to be defeated in one term to return to office. And while his outrageous behavior is the reason many of his followers love him, it risks alienating even more moderate, swing voters in the suburbs, who cost him the 2020 election and will be crucial in the ongoing fierce battle.
New questions about Trump’s fitness for office
Trump’s incoherent ramblings throughout the press conference powerfully showcased the extreme anger that has been evident in every public appearance since Biden exited the race and Harris turned it into enthusiastic rallies and huge crowds.
After Biden was knocked out of the race following a disastrous debate performance that confirmed voters’ fears about his sharpness and ability to serve a second term, Trump’s inability to focus is raising questions about his own capacity to return to power.
“Donald Trump is not the Donald Trump of 2016, he seems slow, he seems rambling, he seems low energy, and he’s really struggling to make a point,” said former Trump White House communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin, who broke with the former president after he refused to concede his 2020 defeat. “He’s a man who’s not at the top of his game anymore, and that may have worked when he was up against Joe Biden—the contrast sometimes made him seem stronger and more vibrant. That doesn’t work against Kamala Harris, a younger candidate with more energy,” she said on CNN’s “AC360.”
Scott Jennings, a CNN political commentator who worked in George W. Bush’s White House, approved of Trump’s impulse to talk about high food prices that are plaguing many Americans. But he told Anderson Cooper that Trump had gone “way off the rails” during his press conference. “He’s the only one who can decide to focus and maintain focus… it really falls on his shoulders because he’s the star of the show.” Jennings added that Trump “will have to decide how comfortable he is with doing it that way throughout the rest of the election.”
Yet, the former president showed no sign that he was willing to listen to advice, telling reporters, “Now, you’re going to say that he’s just grumbling and shouting… I’m a very calm person, believe it or not.”
But to prove otherwise, on Thursday, Trump rambled on various subjects—venting about Hillary Clinton’s emails as if he had time-traveled back to the 2016 election, recounting strange conversations with people who call him “Sir,” musing about “bird cemeteries” he blamed on wind farms, praising his own “great relationship” with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and raging against prosecutors who have charged him with attempting to overturn the 2020 election and hoarding classified documents.
Deploying Harris
Harris’s campaign is relishing the spectacle of Trump nearly collapsing daily. After his appearance in New Jersey, the vice president’s team released what they called “Trump Statement… Whatever It Is.”
The bitterness of Biden being overshadowed by Harris’s campaign was evident on Thursday as the president and vice president appeared at a joint official event for the first time since he set aside his reelection bid. Harris led cheers for Biden in the Maryland suburbs as the pair highlighted a landmark deal with major drug companies to cut the cost of some prescription drugs for seniors. “I have to tell you, it’s my enduring, enormous, enormous, enormous honor to serve alongside the most extraordinary human being, American, and leader, our president, Joe Biden,” she said.
Biden appeared emotional at the warm reception and declared that Harris would make “a great president.” The event highlighted how the vice president is seeking to share credit for some of the Biden administration’s biggest successes even as she seeks to fend off Trump’s effort to tie her to policies contributing to inflation and exploit the economic frustration felt by many working Americans.
On Friday, the vice president will deliver a speech on the economy in North Carolina, which will be seen as a response to the former president’s remarks in the key swing state on Wednesday. She is expected to propose new measures to curb what she sees as price gouging by grocery giants and a plan to reduce housing costs, including $25,000 in down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers. The populist theme of the new plans seems to be an effort to portray Harris as a lifelong champion of working Americans against the interests of wealthy and powerful corporations. As the vice president, a former prosecutor and senator, said while highlighting the drug deal: “Throughout my career, I have worked to hold bad actors accountable and reduce the cost of prescription drugs.”
But the mechanics of Harris’s plans will be controversial—critics have accused her of supporting price controls that have often failed elsewhere. Thus, Trump has plenty of opportunities to make effective arguments against his new rival. However, a former president who has always believed that he is his best advocate now seems to lack the coherence to do so.
“I have to do it my way,” Trump said on Thursday.
