MAGA faithful starts to doubt Trump's ability to serve another term: columnist

Donald Trump has seemingly locked up the Republican Party's presidential nomination, but a veteran White House reporter said some of his allies are growing concerned that he's incapable of serving another term.

Brian Karem, former senior White House correspondent for Playboy, wrote a new column for Salon revealing that some MAGA insiders share his concerns about Trump's mental decline, which he said was on full display at the Manhattan courthouse where he "seems to be melting into a puddle of his own makeup and sweat."

"This opens up speculation as to what will go on in Milwaukee when the MAGA faithful descend like a horde of cicadas to choose their candidate for president," Karem wrote. "It is presupposed that Trump, no matter what, will become the nominee. But there are whispers, and growing speculation among the faithful and the faithless in MAGA land that Donald Trump may not be up for the job."

Trump's daily appearances in court, which New York Justice Juan Merchan requires during the trial, show him looking disheveled and diminished, and Karem revealed that he spoke to a Trump organizer in Wisconsin who thinks the ex-president may have run out of gas.

“For the first time,” that Trump organizer told Karem, “I’ve started to think about what we would do if Trump isn’t our candidate. It’s a real s--t show to consider.”

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Karem said the White House had tried to shield Trump from public view toward the end of his presidency, until the COVID crisis thrust him back into the spotlight, where he made memorably ludicrous claims about treating the virus by injecting bleach or somehow shining UV light inside the body.

"Trump can’t run. Trump can’t hide," Karem wrote. "Trump can’t do all the things that have enabled him to thrive as a despotic grifter his entire life. His mind is slipping, his grip on the world is weakening and at the end of the day Donald Trump recognizes it. You can see it in his eyes. His last cogent thought may well be the recognition that he’s the world’s largest loser and everything he’s done his entire life has led to utter failure."