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Three weeks before the US elections, Donald Trump is acting increasingly erratic. Among other things, it demands the arrest of Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
opinion
It is anything but optimal for Mr. President: Donald Trump speaks with his followers in front of the White House. (October 10, 2020)
Photo: Erin Scott (Keystone)
The surveys are questionable, almost nothing goes according to plan. And three weeks before the election date, Donald Trump rips the deck.
Perhaps he is driven by the steroids the president receives due to his Covid 19 disease: Trump acts unpredictably and irrationally like a bodybuilder on anabolic steroids, violently demolishing and sabotaging his own election campaign. (Read also: Trump swears by this supposed miracle cure). The second television debate with Joe Biden, one of his diminished hopes of catching up with the Democrats, was unceremoniously canceled by the president because he did not like the virtual format.
Trump torpedoed negotiations with Congressional Democrats over a gigantic electoral gift in the form of an aid package worth billions of euros for the economic victims of the pandemic. Although he immediately changed his mind after a blanket shake of the head, Democrats and Republicans in Congress on Saturday also objected.
There were other setbacks as well: Rather than trying to make up for his historic deficit with American voters, Trump insulted Democratic vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris as a “monster” and “communist” after her debate with Vice President Mike Pence.
A “post-Watergate bloodbath”?
Meanwhile, the president’s health status in the wake of his coronavirus infection is treated as a state secret, although Trump claims in an endless loop that it feels great. He did not believe it was “still contagious,” the patient claimed Thursday and was immediately invited to an election event on the White House lawn on Saturday, exactly where, in the opinion of his top science adviser Anthony Fauci, in late September. Superspreader Event “had happened.
It’s unclear if Trump is still on steroids, the side effects of which could further fuel his volatility. He no longer takes anything, he said on Friday before correcting himself: “I don’t take almost anything.”
The tumult is now upsetting friends at Trump’s party as well. If things continue like this, expect a “post-Watergate bloodbath” in the election, said Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. In the 1974 Congressional elections, Democrats won four seats in the Senate and 49 seats in the House of Representatives.
Faced with possible defeat in November, the president reached into his autocratic bag of tricks on Thursday and Friday, demanding that both Barack Obama and Joe Biden be arrested for investigating him in Russia. “These people must be accused, that was the greatest political crime in the history of our country,” Trump thundered.
Trump’s compliant attorney general William Barr is supposed to do the dirty work, but he refuses. Worse still: if Trump had high hopes for the investigative work of Barr’s appointed prosecutor John Durham to clarify the beginnings of the Russia investigation, he has now been disappointed. Barr confided to Republican congressmen that nothing would happen until the election. The president was beside himself: “Either Bill Barr will be listed as the greatest attorney general in the history of the United States or as something sad,” he complained.
The frustrated president
Apparently, the Minister of Justice has drawn a red line that he is unwilling to cross, perhaps also due to Trump’s impending electoral defeat. On the other hand, the ever-subservient Secretary of State Mike Pompeo promised help: As the president called out loud, he wants to publicize Hillary Clinton’s emails from the 2016 election campaign. Hardly anyone would be interested in slow movements.
His renewed obsession with Clinton, along with insane requests to arrest Biden three weeks before the election date, reflects the president’s growing frustration. It still wouldn’t be too late to catch up with the help of generous electoral gifts and sophisticated strategies in critical states. But that would likely require more discipline than Trump has.
