'No one to blame but himself': Rick Wilson says Trump turned campaign into a 'clown show'

Former President Donald Trump is rapidly losing all the momentum he built up in the campaign before President Joe Biden exited the race, former GOP strategist turned Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson told Salon's Chauncey DeVega in a broad-ranging interview published on Thursday.

This comes as polling shows the race swinging back in favor of Democrats in key battleground races — and as some focus groups indicate they are sick of the former president.

"Donald Trump laid a trap to try to beat Joe Biden, and that trap was to tell every American that the old man couldn't hack it, and now Trump is the old man who can't hack it in the race," said Wilson. "We’re in a much different and better position than we were in a few weeks ago ... Over the last few weeks, we've seen a lot of movement in the polling. The 2024 election is fundamentally changed. This is not Donald Trump's race anymore. Trump no longer controls the narrative. He doesn't have control of the flow of information, and it's really hurting Trump."

It wasn't just the sudden replacement of the candidate, Wilson continued, but also how Trump has handled the recent developments in the race, including, notably, the attempted assassination at his rally in Pennsylvania last month.

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Trump "has no one but himself to blame for his political fortunes right now and how he has lost the momentum so fast," said Wilson. "The narrative that Trump and his people were trying to impose on this horrible event did not match up to what the motivation turned out to really be. And then Trump himself turned it into a clown show, with the huge bandage on his ear. The drama Trump tried to create around the assassination attempt did not work."

The former president's whole bid to make himself a "glorious martyr" didn't work, said Wilson, because the American people already have made up their minds about him and he cannot change those perceptions.

We're still at the point where "Trump could beat Harris because of the Electoral College," Wilson concluded. However, "My worry tank is diminished meaningfully. My hope tank is on three-quarters, but I'm going to stop for gas again soon before Election Day in November."