The wildest details of Trump campaign’s struggles are revealed

The campaign struggles of Donald Trump have been highlighted by Maggie Haberman And Jonathan Swan in a new report for The New York Times will be released on Saturday and will feature incredible details and revelations.

Trump has said repeatedly, including at a rally Friday in Montana, that he prefers to run against the vice president. Kamala Harris on the president Joe Bidenbut the Times A report, citing more than a dozen people close to Trump, suggests the former president is growing frustrated that he is running against Harris as she continues to outperform Biden in the polls.

Here are five of the craziest details from the report on Trump’s campaign and its less-than-great final weeks, in no particular order.

1 – I sent angry text messages to Miriam Adelson about her Super PAC
(which spent $18 million per WEEK):
In late July, Trump asked an aide to send angry text messages to Miriam Adelsonthe widow of Sheldon Adelsona casino mogul who died in 2021. Trump’s team accused Adelson, whose Preserve America PAC was spending nearly $20 million a week at the time, of employing RINOs — Republicans in name only.

Sources familiar with the incident said Miriam Adelson was shocked by the criticism, as she had a “friendly” meeting with Trump days earlier. Among the messages, the Trump aide reportedly said Adelson’s late husband would “never have tolerated” RINOs running the Super PAC.

2 – Insisted on “bizarre” attacks only against JD Vance:
A common line of attack for Democrats since Biden left office has been to call out Trump and JD Vance “weird.” The term was first used by the governor of Minnesota. Tim Walz (D), now Harris’ running mate, when he talks about Vance and some of his past comments that have drawn backlash.

According to the TimesTrump was unaware of some of Vance’s past comments. At one point, he reportedly asked his advisers if they were aware of Vance’s comments about “childless cat ladies” before choosing him as his running mate. Vance has made numerous rants against “childless” Americans.

At a meeting with donors on August 2, Trump labeled his running mate as “weird.” When someone brought up the label, Trump responded, “That’s not about me. They say that about JD.”

3 – Desperate search for a fair and mean nickname for Harris
(Also for a strategy):
Trump is struggling to strategize how to attack Harris, Haberman and Swan say. According to people close to the former president, he publicly says he would rather run against Harris than President Joe Biden, but behind the scenes, that is not the case.

As Trump tries to find the right moniker for Harris, his campaign has been gathering information on the vice president and donors have urged him to focus more on specific issues like crime and the border.

Her advisers have gone to great lengths to test policy-based attacks to see which ones work best with voters in key states. They have said privately that they have so much material against Ms. Harris — from interviews to policy statements to her record as a prosecutor — that distilling it all into a specific framework can seem like a challenge.

Yet most of Mr. Trump’s top advisers have urged the campaign and the candidate to focus on the economy, immigration and crime — issues on which Mr. Trump’s message resonates powerfully with the so-called “persuadable” voters they target.

4- Angry journalists call reporters to tell them that no changes are planned in the campaign:
Trump may not be happy with his current situation, but he insists he has no plans to make any changes to his campaign staff.

Trump has met in recent days with key allies, including his former adviser Kellyanne Conway, to discuss his campaign strategy, but has grown angry at the prospect of seeking to change his team.

“In an angry phone call to a Times reporter Friday afternoon, Mr. Trump denied that he was making changes to his team, saying he was “thrilled” with his top advisers. Susie Wiles And Chris LaCivitaand wondering why he would even want to make such a change,” Haberman and Swan wrote in the Times.

5 – Angry and disturbed, Harris becomes bigger and performs better in the media:
Trump allies also say he is exasperated by the amount of “earned press” Harris is getting — press she doesn’t pay for. Trump has long dominated his political opponents in media coverage, but he has reportedly expressed frustration to his team that Harris seems to be the first to outpace him.

According to Haberman and Swan, Trump is constantly questioning his team about new polls and Harris’ ability to maintain her momentum for much longer.

BONUS DETAIL: Haberman also reported Friday night that Trump called him angrily after his plane was forced to make an emergency landing in Montana. He threatened to sue The New York Times over its coverage of his claim that former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown was involved in a near-crash helicopter crash with him in the 1990s. Brown has denied the story, and the former city councilman Nate Holden and a former Trump executive both said the former president confused Holden with Brown.

Read the rest of The New York Times report here.

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