According to a report from Bloomberg, a "struggling" Donald Trump is not making any effort to disguise his disappointment that his plans to serve a second term as president have fallen to pieces due to both coronavirus pandemic and the collapse of the economy -- including massive job losses -- that ensued after the country shut down.
With presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden taking leads both nationally and in previously reliable Republican states like Florida, Texas and North Carolina, the Bloomberg report notes that the embattled president can't help but indulge in self-pity in front of the press and public.
Explaining that the COVID-19 crisis has "weakened the central plank of his campaign -- the economy," Bloomberg's Josh Wingrove and Mario Parker note that the president has also lost the solace of appearing before adoring fans at MAGA rallies due to health concerns.
More to the point, the authors of the report note that previous presidents remained stoic over their travails, writing those presidential predecessors "kept those feelings to themselves and focused their public statements on the misfortunes of the electorate."
"Trump’s frequent complaints of mistreatment show a leader unwilling to change tactics, even as polls show him trailing Democrat Joe Biden and even at risk of losing his Republican Party’s Senate majority," they wrote. "His poll numbers and approval rating have dropped as the concurrent crises focused attention on Trump and his response. Undaunted, he has continued to bend the narrative around himself personally even as Americans worry about the pandemic’s rising toll."
According to GOP consultant Charlie Black, the president has not done himself any favors leading up to the pandemic and failed to build up any goodwill from the voters who will now judge him in November.
“Most of the problems he’s had up until the virus were largely of his own making. He could use the economy to out-shout that. But now it’s harder,” he explained.
Making their case, the Bloomberg reporters wrote, "... his interviews often veer back to himself. He brushed aside a Supreme Court decision last week that he didn’t have immunity from a New York investigation involving his personal finances. He pointed to an audit in declining to release his tax returns."
Julian Zelizer, a political historian at Princeton University backed up their argument -- citing his complaints about the coronavirus pandemic that occured on his watch -- by explaining in an email, "The president has not handled this well. He has politicized the solutions and separated himself from the science. The resurgence in the states is the clearest proof that the administration has failed to contain this virus.”
You can read more here.