'He's screwing himself': Trump advisor frustrated president can't stay on message in election's last days

According to a report from Politico, Republican operatives and campaign officials advising Donald Trump are hoping he can stay on message during the last ten days of the election and turn his re-election campaign around.

Following Thursday night's debate, aides to the president had mixed feeling about Trump's performance, happy he kept himself in check for the most part but frustrated when he went off on digressions.

According to the report from Politico, Trump's return to the campaign trail where he will be holding multiple rallies daily during the sprint to the finish presents multiple chances for missteps that could cripple a campaign that has been floundering for months -- and that has Republicans worried.

"Whether Trump receives the eleventh-hour boost he desperately needs will depend on which version of the president voters see coming out of the final debate in the week that remains before the Nov. 3 election. As he returns to base-revving campaign events where unpredictability reigns, Republicans are worried Trump could quickly undo any gains he might have made here Thursday," the report states with one campaign adviser lamenting that the president is hurting his chances by following his worst instincts.

“The president’s job 10 days out is to convince voters that Joe Biden would decimate American industries, pack the courts and send small businesses back into coronavirus lockdowns,” stated the adviser before adding, "He’s screwing himself with the Hunter Biden stuff and he needs to cut it out.”

As for the debate, some associates of the president were of two minds about how he conducted himself; on the one hand pleased with his relative restraint while simultaneously frustrated that it was too little, too late, with one adviser texting out, "Why didn’t he do this in the first debate?”

"But if the president is taking notes from his own campaign, Republican allies who want him to focus on what they perceive as Biden’s more controversial positions — on issues like hydraulic fracking, oil dependency and coronavirus restrictions — may be sorely disappointed in the coming days," the report continued. "Between Thursday night and Friday morning, the Trump campaign and RNC sent out six emails mentioning Hunter Biden and calling attention to 'explosive' new reports about his alleged interactions with foreign business firms."

You can read more here.