It’s less than 60 days to go until polling day in America and the race could not be closer. Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are due to debate on Tuesday night in what could be one of the most consequential clashes of modern times. So, with all eyes on the National Constitution Centre in Philadelphia, who better to ask about Trump’s mindset than the Brit who knows him best?
Step forward Piers Morgan, who appears on today’s Americano podcast with Andrew Neil and Freddy Gray. After the shocking assassination attempt in July, Gray asked, has The Donald now softened and changed? Not a bit of it says Morgan, who says that after praising Trump’s courage on Fox News a week after he was shot, the former President then called him up:
I got back to my hotel, he rang me and we had a 15 minute chat. He was exactly the same Donald Trump he’s always been. He hadn’t changed one iota. He spent five minutes talking about how much his ears have bled and how he discovered that ears bleed more than any other body part. And his ears, of course, bled more than most people’s ears. He then spent another five minutes talking about what it’s like to be shot. Gripping. Fascinating. how he said he was saved by his immigration chart, that he had a chart in the teleprompter about immigration, which made him turn his head almost imperceptibly by an inch.
And at that moment that he did that, the bullet whistled past and missed him by the inch, that he would have been in direct hit from. So he should have been dead. It was a miraculous escape. But the idea that Trump has somehow been neutered, or tamed or becalmed, or had some great out of body experience has changed his outlook on life. I just didn’t get any of that from that conversation with him.
Meanwhile, Andrew Neil suggested that since the assassination attempt Trump has become the Biden of this campaign:
I don’t think [Trump] is a broken man at all – that’s obviously nonsense. But I would say a number of things. It is remarkable how that assassination attempt has already faded away into the background. I thought it would be the dominant theme – it would be the making of Trump in many ways. But the pace of American politics now is so quick that for a lot of people it already seems a bit like ancient history – which is crazy in a way but that’s the way it is.
The other thing I would say is that Mr Trump is now the Biden of this campaign. He is the old guy now. Now whereas Biden was an old 81 and Trump is quite a young 78, he’s still the old guy. She is by far the younger woman, there’s a 20 year difference, as Piers said.
And he does have slight Biden touches every now and then. Remember he was very keen to blame Nikki Haley for not using the National Guard on June 6 when he meant Nancy Pelosi. And he does lose his thread. He did it earlier this week when he couldn’t find a name and he had to shout off stage: basically ‘what am I talking about?’ and so on.
I began this broadcast by saying that I thought the Harris campaign had stalled and… now even her cheerleaders are now beginning to say the campaign has stalled. But I think that Trump’s campaign needs a reboot. The Trump campaign needs a 2.0. Because the old shtick isn’t working anymore. Piers is right, we know what he stands for, we know all his lines. But even his own supporters are a bit bored with that. I would urge our viewers, next time they watch… when Trump is speaking of one of his rallies, don’t look at Trump, look at the people sitting behind him. Because these people sitting behind him are the cult and yet even they’re now beginning to look bored.
You can watch the full episode here:
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