For what now feels like a fleeting moment this summer, former President Donald Trump seemed to be on top of the world.
He was leading in the presidential election polls. His opponent delivered perhaps the most disastrous debate performance in recent memory. The Supreme Court granted him some presidential immunity and a Florida judge tossed his classified documents case. He survived a literal assassination attempt.
But the images of Trump smiling, surrounded by revelers donning their own ear bandages, while Hulk Hogan ripped off his shirt in support of the former president almost feel like a distant memory.
Since Vice President Kamala Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee, there’s been an unmistakable enthusiasm surrounding her campaign, from record-setting donations to closing the gaps — and even leading — in some swing state polls.
With the latest burst of momentum that surrounded Harris choosing Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, the former president even seems a bit rattled.
When reached by Business Insider about reports that Trump is frustrated over the Harris campaign’s momentum, Steven Chueng, the Trump campaign spokesperson, called it “fake news.”
“President Trump and his campaign team are doing everything necessary to win this election,” he said in an email, adding that the stakes were too high and “everyone knows to row in unison in the same direction. The party and the movement have never been more unified.”
Trump keeps veering off message
When President Joe Biden was his opponent, Trump seemed to have no trouble staying on message: Biden is too old, look at the border, see how high prices at the grocery store are, etc.
But with Harris, Trump can’t quite seem to nail the counter-messaging, at times even appearing visibly frustrated at a press conference this week by the hype surrounding her campaign.
He’s been unable to avoid bringing up race and gender — even falsely calling Harris’ heritage into question while speaking at a conference for Black journalists — despite allies urging him to focus on the issues.
He’s even taken to sort of defending Biden.
In a Truth Social post on Tuesday, he baselessly said the presidency was “stolen” from Biden by Harris and other Democrats.
At a press conference at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday, he again claimed Biden had “the right to run” but that Democrats “took it away.”
When a reporter asked Trump at the same press conference if he was worried by the size of the crowds Harris was drawing, he appeared exasperated in reply. “Oh give me a break,” he said, accusing the press of ignoring the large crowds he has drawn.
He even went on a tangent claiming he drew a larger crowd to the national mall on January 6, 2021, than Martin Luther King Jr. did in 1963 when he delivered the famous “I Have A Dream” speech. (King had an estimated 250,000 people. The January 6 Committee estimated Trump had 53,000.)
Some Trump allies are worried, too
It’s not just Trump who seems a bit shaken by how the election tables have turned, with some on the right losing confidence in the former president’s ability to win in November.
“At the convention, it was game over, and the Democrats realized that,” Richard Porter, a Republican National Committee member, told The Washington Post. “It felt like it was too good to be true, and it was.”
Five people close to the campaign who spoke on the condition of anonymity told the Post Trump is relentlessly expressing frustration over how the race is shaping up. “It’s unfair that I beat him and now I have to beat her, too,” Trump recently said to an ally, the outlet reported.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close ally of Trump, even acknowledged to the Post that the campaign has “hit a few speed bumps.”
Ben Shapiro, a right-wing pundit, told The New York Times that Trump needs to focus on attacking the Harris-Walz campaign and “stick to a simple point: You were better off in 2019 than you are in 2024.”
Whether all the momentum behind the Harris campaign will ultimately translate to a win in November is impossible to say.
In the meantime, how Trump is handling it may not be helping his case.
