David Frum, a former Republican insider and speechwriter for President George W. Bush, did not think much of former President Donald Trump's interview with X CEO Elon Musk on Monday.
Writing in The Atlantic, Frum contended that Trump did nothing to help his chances in the 2024 presidential campaign and instead only gave a tired rehash of grievances and attacks he'd leveled countless times in previous interviews.
"The X Spaces interview delivered Donald Trump without makeup or dress-up, talking unselfconsciously: manic, boastful, untruthful, aggrieved, abusive, obsessive, random, ignorant, tedious, b----y — and ultimately, formless and endless," Frum argued.
What most amazed Frum was the fact that Trump still doesn't seem to grasp that he is no longer running against an 81-year-old President Joe Biden but against Vice President Kamala Harris.
"Trump’s not running against President Joe Biden anymore, yet he talked about Biden at least as much as about his actual opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris," he observed. "He still lacked any clear or memorable critique of her, except for his derisive comments about her supposed inability to do the kind of interview that he, Trump, was making such a desperate hash of. Trump is the challenger and the topic should be the Biden-Harris record, but he preferred to reminisce about his own good old days."
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The larger problem for Trump, continued Frum, is that most Americans are simply tired of being subjected to his shtick for the last eight years.
In other words, Frum said, Trump has the opposite problem of the one that beset President Joe Biden, who would disappear from the public eye for long stretches.
Harris, in contrast, has limited her exposure to the media while also giving rallies to enthusiastic crowds.
"This is Trump’s problem," he concluded. "For all his jibes at her intellect, Harris is managing the mystery appeal effectively. Whereas Trump, who endlessly congratulates himself on his MIT-professor uncle’s brains, is fast arriving at the 'Will you please shut up?' phase of his political descent."
