President Donald Trump remains self-obsessed as the general election approaches. This Thursday morning, as his campaign’s standing in the polls continued to falter, Trump tried out a new tactic — demanding that a debate between him and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden be held earlier than previously scheduled. His thinking may be that if he can get his message out to the American people in that format, then he can salvage some of his campaign — but, it’s stunning that he expects just about anyone outside of his core base of supporters to take him seriously when just about all he does is rant and rave about nonsense on an essentially daily basis.
His self-obsession might be blinding him from his own nonsense. He tweeted:
‘How can voters be sending in Ballots starting, in some cases, one month before the First Presidential Debate. Move the First Debate up. A debate, to me, is a Public Service. Joe Biden and I owe it to the American People!’
How can voters be sending in Ballots starting, in some cases, one month before the First Presidential Debate. Move the First Debate up. A debate, to me, is a Public Service. Joe Biden and I owe it to the American People!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 6, 2020
As of this week, Trump and Biden were slated to face each other in three debates, which are set to take place between September 29 and October 22. The Trump campaign — via Rudy Giuliani, who is handling the campaign’s negotiations with the debate commission — wants a debate in early September, whether that would entail rescheduling a debate for early September or adding a fourth one onto the schedule. In 2016, despite his relentless self-humiliation, Trump infamously claimed that he did great when debating then-challenger Hillary Clinton. Those debates may not have ended up weighing much on the election outcome. This time around, presumptive challenger Joe Biden has a stable and sizable lead in polls – one recent national poll from The Economist/ YouGov had him with a 9 percent national lead.
Trump’s public demand for an earlier debate came the morning after he yet again complained about former Justice Department official Sally Yates, who had testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee the previous day. He mocked the idea that she was not in on supposed scheming from other officials at the department. An implication of that argument, which Trump may not have considered, is that he himself should therefore also be held at least partly responsible for the actions of lower-level officials on his team. Some of those officials, of course, have faced criminal charges.
Sally Yates is either lying or grossly incompetent. It is not possible she could have known so little about Dirty Cop James Comey (and others) from her high position in the Department of “Justice”. The political Crime of the Century, and she had no idea what they were doing?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 6, 2020
Check out Twitter’s response below:
