President Donald Trump no longer even cares if the Republican Party gets blown out in the midterms, MS NOW's Chris Hayes argued in a panel leading up to the president's first State of the Union Address of his second term.
Or at least, Hayes said, he doesn't care about it to the extent that it isn't a personal problem for himself.
"Donald Trump is a very giftedcommunicator in his own weirdway, but he doesn't persuadelike he does a lot of things," said Hayes. "He propagandizes, he bullies,he repeats. He kind of getsthese like brain, theseearworms that stick with you,you know, like even that youuse in common speech, like, youknow, big, strong guy comes upto me," referring to a recent Trump anecdote in which he claims a factory owner tried to kiss him. "But the thing he doesn'tdo, that most presidents do, ispersuade. He doesn't persuade."
"That relates tosomething I think that — that isthe core of what's happeningtonight," Hayes continued. "To his point, I don'tthink he cares about thepolitics. He doesn't care aboutthe fate of some some haplessswing-district Republican. He had this plan to rig the midterms because he doesn'twant to lose Congress, doesn'twant to get impeached, and hedoesn't want to get prosecuted,basically. But he doesn't careabout the fates of these people."
Rather, Hayes said, he just "wants to be president. Hewants — he likes to move thecarrier groups in the MiddleEast, get these big baublesfrom foreign leaders, puttariffs on people. He, he, hehas a bizarre disconnection atthis point from the normalpolitical incentives of anormal president operating in anormal system because hisaspirations are not normal.They are to rule as a dictatoror, you know, never run again."
"I don't know, but there'snothing there's no incentivesin him to do the thing thatwould persuade the median voterto come back to the Trumpagenda," he added.