Trump's closing week marked by self-sabotage

The last days of Donald Trump’s campaign to reclaim the office he lost four years ago have not gone as planned—unless the plan involved insulting Puerto Ricans, reviving childhood disease, and reassuring voters that he's “not Hitler.”

The former president’s television ads stuck to his advisers' plan, hammering home the message that “Kamala broke it; Trump will fix it.” But Trump, a man who bridles at scripts, guardrails, and discipline, blew right past that slogan and used his final week on the stump to voice old grievances, dangle the threat of violence against his enemies, and ramble on in the rhetorical style he calls the “weave.”

His week began last Sunday night with a $1 million event at Madison Square Garden, which quickly turned into a public relations nightmare when a shock comedian insulted Puerto Rican and Black people. It ended this Sunday with Trump joking about violence against members of the media. That came at a rally in Lititz, Pennsylvania, where he bragged about going off script.

After beginning his remarks with a sluggishly delivered intonation of lines in his prepared speech, he quickly veered off into attacks on foreign elections (“France has crooked elections”); the size of the ballot in Arizona (“It takes four hours to fill out the ballot”); the “watermelon head” of Rep. Adam Schiff (“The smallest neck I’ve ever seen”); and the fact that President Biden dropped out (“Where the hell is Biden? They stole the election from this guy”).

Twelve minutes in, he boasted that he was ignoring his prepared speech. “I love being off this terrible teleprompter,” he said. “Because the truth comes out. The truth comes out.”

But time after time in the crucial final week, Trump’s “truth” was not his campaign's message designed to woo undecided voters. Added up, it was at best distracting to the campaign and at worst damaging to its efforts in the closing stretch.

Worse yet, Trump's allies did him no favors, dropping politically unhelpful statements almost every day of the week. These included comments from House Speaker Mike Johnson targeting the politically popular Affordable Care Act and CHIPS and Science Act, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. threatening childhood vaccinations and fluoride in water.

Here is a recap of what is almost certainly the strangest final week in any modern presidential campaign:

Sunday, Oct. 27

For weeks, Trump had promoted his big rally in Madison Square Garden, reveling in hosting an historic event in the iconic arena so close to his New York City penthouse. But it turned ugly with the first speaker, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe: “I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico,” he said. For good measure, he added shots at Jewish and Black people.

Other speakers called Harris “the devil” and “the antichrist” and said “her pimp handlers will destroy our country.” It was so bad that the Trump campaign—which almost never apologizes—distanced itself from Hinchcliffe, saying his “joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”

The campaign was shocked both by what Hinchcliffe said—even though they had vetted the speech before putting it on the teleprompter—and by the fierce fallout. The hometown tabloid the New York Daily News' take: “Trump’s MSG event turns into ugly racist rally, speakers insult Puerto Ricans, Blacks, Jews.”

Monday, Oct. 28

In Atlanta, Trump attacked former first lady Michelle Obama, calling her “nasty.” He insisted he is not a fascist, but rather is "the opposite of a Nazi.” Vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a former candidate now supporting Trump, said Monday that Trump had promised to give him “control” of several public health agencies, including the Health and Human Services Department and the Agriculture Department. House Speaker Mike Johnson told Republicans in Pennsylvania there will be “no Obamacare” if Trump wins, promising “massive reform” of the popular program.

Tuesday, Oct. 29

Trump attempted to make good with Puerto Rican voters in Pennsylvania, stating that Hinchcliffe “probably … shouldn’t have been there” at Madison Square Garden. He defended Sunday’s rally as “like a love fest.” And in a damage-control interview with Fox’s Sean Hannity, he again denied being “a Hitler-type guy or a Hitler lover. I’m not.”

Wednesday, Oct. 30

Trump appeared in Wisconsin wearing a bright orange and yellow safety vest and driving a Trump-branded garbage truck in an effort to call attention to Biden's comments that Trump supporters were garbage (or, depending on your reading of his remarks, that some of them say garbage). While many mocked Trump’s theatrics—and him losing his footing as he tried to climb into the truck—Democrats circulated comments they viewed as more damaging about women at the Wisconsin rally. He said his aides had advised him to stop saying he is going “to protect the women of our country,” telling him it's “very inappropriate.” But he rejected that advice. “I'm going to do it, whether the women like it or not. I'm going to protect them.”

Yet again, he found himself talking about Hitler. At a rally in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, he had to issue a denial unthinkable for any previous presidential nominee since World War II: “They've called me Hitler,” he said. “I'm not Hitler.”

The side issue of childhood vaccines continued to divert from his intended message. On Wednesday, Howard Lutnick, cochair of his transition team, told CNN's Kaitlan Collins that Trump would give Kennedy data from public health agencies, possibly leading to child vaccines being taking “off of the market.”

Thursday, Oct. 31

Thursday was a day for rhetorical detours. In New Mexico, he argued he had won the state twice despite losing it by big margins. He attacked GOP Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, saying “Mitch doesn’t have it anymore.”

He praised Kennedy, saying he is “going to work on health and women’s health” in a Trump administration and “wants to look at the vaccines.” And he denied trying to repeal the ACA, saying in a tweet he “never even thought about such a thing,” despite having worked toward that goal in the White House.

In an interview with Tucker Carlson, he again invoked violence in his language and opened a new controversy, calling former Rep. Liz Cheney “a radical war hawk,” adding, “Let's put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her. OK? Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face.” Also in the interview with Carlson, he called Kamala Harris “that sleaze bag.”

Friday, Nov. 1

Trump’s moment on Friday came when he grew irate about the microphone at his rally in Milwaukee, complaining it was set too low, forcing him to hold the mic in his hand. Then he said it was too heavy. “Do you want to see me knock the hell out of people backstage? … I am up here seething. I’m working my ass off with this stupid mic,” Trump said. "I'm blowing out my left arm, now I'm blowing out my right arm and I'm blowing out my damn throat, too, because these stupid people." The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel described what happened next: “Clips of the stage antics with the microphone circulating online suggested Trump was pantomiming a sex act, provoking laughter from the audience along with a mix of outrage and jokes on social media and during this weekend's episode of Saturday Night Live.”

Unfortunately for Trump, that image—along with him riding the garbage truck—may have been the most memorable of the week.

Saturday, Nov. 2

Trump’s Saturday opened on another issue not on his final-week agenda. Kennedy announced on social media that one of the first acts Trump will take if he wins will be to “advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water.” The New York Times called it “a stunning potential reversal” of U.S. health policy and said it “raises the specter of an all-out assault on public-health expertise” if Trump wins.

His rallies in Virginia and North Carolina continued to stray. The Washington Post reported that he “spent his last Saturday of the presidential race making a trio of meandering, profane speeches in which he spoke repeatedly about women” and made “a disjointed appeal to female voters.”

Surprisingly, he even attempted a joke referencing the Access Hollywood tape controversy from his 2016 campaign. In talking about the mechanical arms that catch a SpaceX rocket when it returns, he said, “And then you see those arms, like you grab your beautiful baby, a beautiful child—see? In the old days I would have said, like you grab your—girlfriend. Now, I don’t say that anymore. I say like you grab your child.”

Trump also found humor in a joke uttered from the crowd in Greensboro, North Carolina, that implied Harris had been a prostitute. “This place is amazing," he said.

Sunday, Nov. 3

At his rally in Lititz, Trump opened with repeated attacks on the media, calling them “so damn bad,” “phony,” “bloodsuckers,” and “corrupt.” Then, he complained about the protective glass panels behind him and on each side. He noted the only direction with no glass was straight ahead, where the press was positioned. “To get me, somebody would have to shoot through the fake news, and I don’t mind that so much," he said. When that sparked immediate criticism online and on news channels, the campaign insisted he had not said what everyone had heard.

Steven Cheung, the campaign’s communications director, put out a statement contending that Trump “was actually looking out for their welfare, far more than his own.” He said, “The president’s statement about protective glass placement has nothing to do with the media being harmed, or anything else.” He was showing concern from their safety, he said, adding flatly, “There can be no other interpretation of what was said.”

Trump also said at the rally that “I shouldn’t have left” the White House after losing the 2020 election because he really had won the contest.