For what now seems like a brief moment this summer, former President Donald Trump seemed to be on top of the world.
He leads in the presidential elections. His opponent delivered perhaps the most disastrous debate performance in recent memory. The Supreme Court granted him presidential immunity and a Florida judge threw out his file of classified documents. He survived an actual assassination attempt.
But the images of Trump smiling, surrounded by revelers wearing earmuffs while Hulk Hogan ripped his shirt off in support of the former president almost feel like a distant memory.
Since Vice President Kamala Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee, there has been unmistakable excitement surrounding her campaign, from record donations to closing gaps — and even leading — in several state polls.
With the latest burst of momentum surrounding Harris picking Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, the former president even seems a little shocked.
When reached by Business Insider about reports that Trump is frustrated with Harris’ campaign momentum, Steven Chueng, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, called it “fake news.”
“President Trump and his campaign team are doing whatever it takes to win this election,” he said in an email, adding that the stakes were very high and “everyone knows how to line up in unison in the same direction “The party and the movement have never been more unified.”
Trump continues to avoid the message
When President Joe Biden was his opponent, Trump seemed to have no problem staying on message: Biden is too old, look at the border, look at how high the prices are at the grocery store, etc.
But with Harris, Trump can’t seem to sort out the counter-message, at times even appearing visibly frustrated at a press conference this week by the hype surrounding her campaign.
He has been unable to avoid bringing up race and gender — even questioning Harris’ heritage while speaking at a conference for black journalists — despite allies urging him to focus on the issues.
He has even taken to defending Biden.
In a Truth Social post on Tuesday, he baselessly said the presidency was “stolen” from Biden by Harris and other Democrats.
At a news conference at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday, he again claimed that Biden had “the right to run” but that Democrats “took him away.”
When a reporter asked Trump at the same press conference if he was concerned about the size of the crowds Harris was drawing, he appeared irritated in response. “Oh give me a break,” he said, accusing the press of ignoring the huge crowds he has drawn.
He even went on a tangent by claiming he drew a bigger crowd to the mall on January 6, 2021, than Martin Luther King Jr. did. in 1963 when he gave his famous “I Have A Dream” speech. (King had about 250,000 people. The Jan. 6 committee estimated Trump had 53,000.)
Some Trump allies are also worried
It’s not just Trump who seems a little shaken by the way the election tables have turned, with some on the right losing faith in the former president’s ability to win in November.
“At the convention, the game was over and the Democrats understood that,” Richard Porter, a member of the Republican National Committee, told The Washington Post. “It seemed too good to be true, and it was.”
Five people close to the campaign, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the Post that Trump is relentlessly expressing frustration with how the race is shaping up. “It’s unfair that I beat him and now I have to beat him,” Trump recently told an ally, the paper reported.
Senator Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally, even admitted to the Post that the campaign has “hit a bit of a gear.”
Ben Shapiro, a right-wing pundit, told the New York Times that Trump should focus on attacking the Harris-Walz campaign and “stick to one simple point: You were better off in 2019 than you were in 2024.”
It’s impossible to say whether all the momentum behind Harris’ campaign will ultimately translate into a victory in November.
Meanwhile, how Trump is handling this may not help his case.