'What does that have to do with the election?' Trump supporters worried about his behavior

24 August 2024

Until recently, the defining narrative of the 2024 presidential election was that 81 year-old President Joe Biden was too old to run for a second term in office. But now that Biden is out of the race, 78 year-old former President Donald Trump's increasingly unhinged public statements are now causing concern even for some of his biggest supporters.

In a recent report, the Guardian spoke with Trump supporters Joan and Billy Long, who drove from New York to Pennsylvania to watch the former president speak at a campaign rally. Joan Long told the publication that she's puzzled by Trump's response to Vice President Kamala Harris' nascent campaign so far.

"I honestly can’t say I know why he starts talking about how to pronounce names. What does that have to do with the election?” Long said. “And I wish he would stop talking about Kamala’s looks.”

Earlier this month, Republican strategist and former Trump administration appointee Matthew Bartlett said that the former president was in the middle of a "public nervous breakdown." He opined that since Biden exited the race last month, Trump's campaign has been in free fall.

"This is a guy who cut through the Republican primary like a knife through butter. This is a guy who pummeled a semi-conscious president in a debate and literally out of a race," Bartlett told Politico. "And now, this is a guy who cannot come to grips with a competitive presidential race that would require discipline and effective messaging. And we're seeing a candidate and a campaign absolutely melt down."

Some of the ex-president's campaign surrogates have also expressed public concern about his strategy toward attacking Harris. In an interview with NBC's Meet the Press last week, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) said Trump's chances of victory are diminished by his decision to lob personal attacks on the vice president in lieu of debating policy.

"His policies are good for America, and if you have a policy debate for president, he wins," Graham said. "Donald Trump the provocateur, the showman, may not win this election."

Less than two weeks after Biden dropped out and endorsed Harris, Trump conducted a widely panned interview at a National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) event. At one point, the 45th president of the United States implied that Harris — who graduated from a historically Black college and pledged a historically Black sorority — wasn't actually Black, prompting audible outrage from NABJ members in the audience.

"She was always of Indian heritage, and was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn't know she was Black, until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black," Trump said. "Is she Indian, or is she Black?"

Former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, who went from being Trump's chief rival in the Republican primary to publicly endorsing his candidacy, told Fox News that the former president "is not going to win talking about what race Kamala Harris is." She also urged him to stop calling his Democratic opponent "dumb."

Click here to read the Guardian's report in full.

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