Trump is so desperate for an October surprise -- but with Rudy Giuliani and Steve Bannon it's a flop

There's nothing President Donald Trump can do to make up a scandal against former Vice President Joe Biden in the last five days ahead of the election.

After 75 million Americans have already voted, Trump's only hope has been Rudy Giuliani and Steve Bannon "discovering" a mystery laptop they say was owned by Hunter Biden with shady emails. As Mother Jones's David Corn and Dan Friedman wrote the "dirty-tricks squad" is desperate.

"In recent days, their Fox-enabled efforts have demonstrated how far they are willing to go with their skullduggery," the report said. "Yet the world may be witnessing the death throes of Trump’s most extreme enablers, protectors, and schemers—and it is ugly."

The disgraced former mayor is now trying to claim that former Vice President Joe Biden is a pedophile. It's unfounded and absurd, but it doesn't stop Giuliani from stirring up QAnon conspiracy followers with their pet issue.

The tweet is gone, but this is how low Giuliani has sunk as he desperately tries to remain relevant to Trump's campaign.

"Last year, Giuliani managed to help get Trump impeached through his efforts to dig up bogus stories about Biden and his son Hunter in Ukraine," the report recalled. "But that epic failure barely slowed Giuliani. He remained hell-bent on tarring Biden with a Ukraine scandal, and went so far as to collaborate with Andrii Derkach, a pro-Russian Ukrainian legislator who the Treasury Department in September described as "an active Russian agent for over a decade.”

Corn and Friedman asked why a president's lawyer would be working with a Russian agent. The question should also be asked why Giuliani's work with a Russian agent isn't being investigated by the Justice Department.

"But it was just Rudy being Rudy. And Fox News and OAN gave him plenty of airtime to peddle what may well have been Russian disinformation," Corn and Friedman wrote. "Giuliani, who has pocketed large fees in recent years as a roving international security consultant, ignored the obvious signs that he had become a useful idiot for Vladimir Putin’s newest pro-Trump attack on a US election. US intelligence agencies even reportedly warned the White House last year that Giuliani was the target of an influence operation by Russian intelligence. He didn’t give a damn. Neither did Trump."

Eventually, Giuliani was forced to walk away from the Russian agent and look for other options for an October surprise. That's when he "found" a mysterious laptop that he said Hunter Biden abandoned at a computer repair shop. The shop owner, a Trump supporter, can no longer confirm if it was actually Hunter Biden who left the laptop, in fact, it was someone who simply "identified himself" as Hunter Biden. Somehow, with no reports or revelations about the laptop, Giuliani's lawyer "found" the repair shop and learned of the laptop. They then took possession of it. It's still unknown how Giuliani and Bannon even knew the laptop was there if they weren't behind taking it there in the first place. The repair shop owner claimed he feared for his safety simply by having the laptop. It was in his possession for over a year without incident.

It has become clear, "Giuliani bungled the operation," the men wrote.

It was then learned that when Giuliani or Bannon pitched the laptop to Fox News, they wouldn't touch it either, because they couldn't authenticate the laptop and they believe Giuliani isn't a reliable source.

At the same time, Giuliani was pushing the Wall Street Journal to do a story on a "former business associate of Hunter Biden's" who claimed the Vice President gave his son advice about a contract with a Chinese company. The Journal's editorial pages have been spreading the conspiracy theories, but the reporting side of the site won't go anywhere near Giuliani's claims, reporting, "there was no evidence that Joe Biden had any role in Hunter’s Chinese venture." It's unknown why the Journal still allows false information to be spread on their editorial page.

To make things worse, Giuliani was then tricked by comedian Sacha Baron Cohen into filming an interview with a young woman. Giuliani was seen "tucking in his shirt" while laying down on a bed.

Giuliani exploded last week during a Fox Business News interview when he was fact-checked in real time about his conspiracy theories. He then posted a rambling, ranting YouTube video where he made a slew of unfounded allegations and provided no evidence of them.

Meanwhile, Bannon was arrested with fraud charges for his campaign to fund the border wall between Mexico and the United States. While Giuliani is ranting about China, Bannon is getting funding from a Chinese dissident who fled the country in 2014 because he reportedly faces charges for financial crimes. The two launched GTV Media, which has been a big part of promoting the conspiracy theories on the site. In fact, Bannon's operation at GTV was talking about the alleged "laptop" before the New York Post picked it up.

So, while Giuliani was in league with a Russian spy, Bannon is coordinating with a foreign businessman on a "sleazy, get-Biden blitz," the men summed up. None of their efforts have worked to shift the vote away from Biden.

"So far, the desperate plays of Giuliani and Bannon haven’t played," the report closed. "If they cannot pull off a better surprise in these final moments and Trump loses, these last few weeks will be a solid reminder of their personal declines and a lesson in how the Trumpian sordidness they enthusiastically embody does not always triumph."

Read the full piece at Mother Jones.