Trump realizes campaign manager has been running 'Nigerian prince scam' on him: report

In a column for the conservative Bulwark, executive editor Jonathan Last mocked Donald Trump for allowing himself to be bilked by campaign manager Brad Parscale, saying the president is being taken for a ride to the tune of millions of dollars by a man who has found the perfect mark.

As Last notes, the realization that Parscale is running a disastrous campaign that is headed for a loss in November seems to have finally hit Trump on Saturday night if the video of a dispirited president walking back to the White House after the disastrous Tulsa rally is any indication.

Using the line, "Look at the big brain on Brad" from the film "Pulp Fiction" Last suggested that Parscale -- who has never before run a political campaign, much less a presidential campaign -- is not the "genius" that he purports to be, and the columnist wondered why the campaign manager has yet to be fired.

Using the Tulsa debacle -- where approximately 6,200 people showed up for the president's first rally in 110 days after Parscale boasted about a million ticket requests -- as a jumping off point, the columnist noted that the campaign manager was also a no-show in Tulsa.

"Brad Parscale was—by total coincidence—not in Tulsa on Saturday. One assumes this had nothing to do with the fact that he understood the reality of what was going to happen," he wrote. "He was probably just off doing Super Important Campaign Business. Or maybe he was Transitioning to Greatness. Who can say?"

"How is it working out for Donald Trump to have Parscale learning on the job?" Last asked, before writing, "Trump currently trails Joe Biden by more than 9 points in the RealClear average and has trailed Biden in all but four of the polls taken in the race ever. So . . . not working out great for the president."

As the columnist notes, echoing the Lincoln Project, the only person benefiting from Parscale mismanagement of the Trump campaign is Parscale himself.

"There is no idea behind Trump 2020. The attempt to brand 'Keep America Great' for the reelection campaign was dead on arrival. The country is now in shambles. The president is deeply unpopular. Save a gigantic corporate tax cut, most of his major legislative initiatives failed during his first term. He has neither plans to complete them nor new initiatives to take their place," he wrote. "Now maybe Brad Parscale really is the greatest data wiz to ever dabble in politics. Maybe he figured out a secret sauce that no one else in the long history electioneering has ever seen. Anything is possible. On the other hand, whenever we on the outside get glimpses into what Parscale’s operation looks like to ordinary voters, it does not look especially sophisticated."

Pointing to recent email blasts sent out by Parscale's operation that are focused on former President Barack Obama -- who incidentally is not running for president -- Last wrote, "Does Brad Parscale really think that contrasting Trump with Obama is going to help Trump get reelected?"

"To understand what Parscale is doing, you have to flip the telescope around 180 degrees and realize that he didn’t build a Death Star. He built the biggest Nigerian Prince scam in the history of the world. But the target of this scam wasn’t the rubes on the internet—," he continued. "No. Brad Parscale built a scheme to take dead aim at the president of the United States. And the big guy bit."

Pointing to Trump's disconsolate return to the White House late Saturday night in a video that went viral, the columnist claimed the realization that the Parscale-led campaign that is failing seems to have finally hit the president.

"That look you saw on Trump’s face Saturday night? That wasn’t sadness or defeat. It was the realization that he’s been the mark all along," he wrote.

You can read more here.