Donald Trump has become a "liability" to his own campaign in the final days of the presidential race, according to Barack Obama's former campaign strategist.
The former president has made offensive and menacing remarks toward women in general, and Liz Cheney in particular, in the past several days, and his hate-drenched rally at Madison Square Garden continues to hang over his campaign, David Axelrod told CNN.
And he added that Trump's team must be totally frustrated with their candidate and his running mate.
"I don't know that I would commend people to listen to [Joe Rogan's] interview with J.D. Vance yesterday, which had some wild twists and turns that I'm not sure were particularly helpful to the Trump campaign," said Axelrod, who steered Obama's re-election campaign in 2012. "I think it's tough when you're in the final 72 hours of the campaign to divert yourself and do that."
Former Trump administration aide Matt Mowers downplayed the former president's threatening comments about Cheney, whom he called a "war hawk" and suggested that she should face down the barrels of nine guns to see how it felt to be in battle, but Axelrod said that was another self-inflicted wound to the Republican campaign.
"I did notice that Matt sort of, he said, well, there are some awkward moments and stuff," Axelrod said. "I mean, that was sort of like, but how is the play otherwise Mrs. Lincoln? That was a bad thing that happened last night," referring to the war comments.
"What happened Sunday [in New York City] was one that turned a lot of Americans off, and I think this is a problem for the Trump campaign. I'm speaking now as an analyst, as I said, I'm thinking, I'm trying to put myself in the position of people who are trying to win this campaign for Trump, and you know, he is very much a liability at this stage of the campaign."
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