In a recent meeting with his advisers, President Trump demonstrated impatience as they warned him that he would suffer a fiasco in the November presidential vote if he persisted with his incendiary reactions, The New York Times reported, citing people who often speak or interact with the president, including current and former White House associates.
“I have to be myself”, Trump reportedly hit back at his confidantes, according to three insiders familiar with the meeting, and hours later took to Twitter, reposting his former personal lawyer’s blatant remark with regard to the George Floyd protesters, claiming that they were “terrorists”. The remark instantly caused a storm online.
Such a fiery response, along with “repeated acts of political self-sabotage”, could be perceived as a proof of unwillingness to do anything to boost his re-election prospects, the NYT noted.
“The president’s customary defiance has been suffused with a heightened sense of agitation as he confronts a series of external crises he has failed to contain, or has exacerbated, according to people close to him”, the publication wrote.
It further cited the St. John's Church photo-op, which, critics fumed, allegedly forced Trump to order the guards to clear the area around the White House of protesters. Trump denied the claims outright, arguing he hadn’t given orders to this end.
The NYT sources suggested that POTUS is acting “trapped and defensive”, with his “self-destructive behaviour” ostensibly not looking like that of “an incumbent during the election year” - something that made many wonder whether he is truly interested in a second term.
Although the aides admitted that Trump has always been known for his markedly exulted behaviour, his “recent inability” to move beyond his penchant “strikes” them as different from his usual aberrations.
However, Rep. Peter King, R-NY, who said he last spoke with Trump shortly before the killing of Floyd, insisted that the president was positive about his re-election prospects.
“We were talking about something else, and he said, ‘How’s it going out there, how am I doing?’” King recalled. “It was very upbeat. The tone of his voice was, he expected me to tell him he was doing well”, the lawmaker added.
A White House spokeswoman, Alyssa Farah, for her part, said in a statement that POTUS “is fully committed to serving a second term and building on and adding to his first-term accomplishments for the American people”.
Separately, Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., weighed in on the matter, saying Trump’s campaign compared favourably to a previous Republican incumbent who failed his re-election bid - former President George H.W. Bush.
“I saw a lot more lethargy in the 1992 Bush campaign than I see in this one”, Cole said.
Meanwhile, POTUS himself seems to have busted the rumours of his unwillingness to engage in a new presidential battle. He told The Washington Post in an interview that Biden is much “weaker” than his 2016 rival Hillary Clinton and famously pledged to give Americans “the highest GDP in the history” as states took to battling the severe economic fallout from the ongoing health crisis. The economic results, Trump said, would be “a better platform” that would give him the lead in the forthcoming November vote.