‘Republicans are getting nervous’: The View’s Meghan McCain ‘baffled’ that Trump keeps screwing himself over

"The View" co-host Meghan McCain wondered why President Donald Trump kept endangering his re-election chances with an incoherent message.

The conservative McCain asked Jonathan Karl, ABC News chief Washington correspondent, to explain what Trump was doing by continuing his off-topic rants at White House events, as he continues to sink in the polls.

"President Trump can't seem to get out of his own way," McCain said, "and I think Republicans are feeling it and getting a little nervous when he's supposed to be talking about China, which is what we were told he was talking about in the Rose Garden, he used the time to attack Joe Biden."

"Why do you think he doesn't have a cohesive message, and how frustrated are his aides by this?" she added. "It's really interesting to me because he has a lot of arrows he could be using, and they just seem to not be using them for whatever reason. It's really baffling."

Karl explained that's how Trump has always been.

"He always goes from the gut," Karl said. "I mean, this is a big theme of my book. He had an expression and did an interview with Barbara Walters back in the '80s, when he first flirted with running for president, and he was just, like, 41 years old. Barbara was trying to get him to explain his strategy and he was, like, no -- it's like the prize fighters. When you go into the ring, you go with the punches. There's nothing strategic with how he goes, he believes he can go by his gut."

"Yes, it frustrates his aides," Karl added. "They're no longer surprised and are used to it. The people that are really frustrated as you mentioned, are Republicans, Republicans in Congress who are worried that things are getting so bad that he is so undisciplined on this, that Republicans will suffer severe losses in the House, further losses in the House and will lose control of the Senate. I mean, you now have Senate races that look newly competitive not just in places like Maine and Colorado, but places like Georgia and maybe even Alabama, Arizona, North Carolina. Republicans are really worried and very frustrated that the president is driving them off a cliff."