Maggie Haberman says Trump is ‘wasting time’

Less than a minute into Donald Trump's speech today, which was ostensibly focused on the economy, the former president lamented the major shakeup in the Democratic ticket. Joe Biden is a very angry man. You know that, right? Because they they took it away from him. They usurped it. They took it away from him. She got no votes. And you look at what happens. That's not the way it's supposed to happen. They are a threat to democracy, Right. As they say. New York Times senior political correspondent Maggie Haberman is here and also a CNN political analyst. You know, this is something he comes back to a lot is he's like a grieved for Joe Biden. Why? The only time he and Joe Biden maybe have had like a Venn diagram of agreement. But but I do think there is a concern of if he is moved on to that he's facing HARRIS in this race, not Joe Biden anymore. Yeah, Jonathan Swan and I wrote about this this week and it's like he's trying to wheel this into existence as if he's trying to get Joe Biden back in the race and try to run the race that he wants it to be. And we have seen him do this before when things have not worked out the way he wants them to. This is what he did during COVID in 2020, when he would repeatedly talk about how great the economy was, how great it was, how great it was, how unfair this all is. Okay, Well, but now you have a different future in front of you. And you you have to deal with that. And they are wasting time. He is wasting time, I should say. I think his team clearly has more of a sense of how it wants to run against Harris. He seems to be all over the place and wants to attack her personally. As we got to see at what was billed as an economic speech earlier today. And he also said that by putting her at the top of the ticket, that it has defrauded the public, that she's defrauding the public by doing that. When you hear that, though, I know everyone tries to separate out what Trump means and what he actually intends to do. But I do think it raises the question of if he intends to to say this was an unfair election if he loses because it was someone different at the top of the ticket. He's already saying a ton of things that suggests to me that he is setting the groundwork for saying if he if he loses, that these are the various reasons why. Whether it is because there was a change in the top of the ticket and he keeps saying they broke the rules, they broke through. There were no rules for this. This was a totally new situation. Now, she was on the ticket with Joe Biden. So she actually did get votes. She just didn't get votes as the presidential nominee. But he is going to blame that. He is going to blame the legal cases against him. Remember, he's getting sentenced next month or scheduled to in New York. We're already seeing him talk about that. So, yes, I think he is he is, you know, working the soil. And we have seen him do this before. Again, you know, a man of few moves to say these are all the reasons why I lost if he did. Yeah, with the New York thing. I mean, he was posting on Social today that because the judge hasn't lifted his gag order or recused himself, that he's not allowed to talk to reporters and said the US Supreme Court involved. New York is trying to steal the election. Right. Everybody's trying to steal the election. Everybody is trying to steal the election by doing things that he doesn't like in his in his term, in his terminology. Look, I mean, one of the things that we have seen Donald Trump do over and over again is complain about other people not following rules when he himself then decides what rules he wants to abide by or what norms he wants to abide by. And that's playing out again here. It was certainly energetic in that speech today. He lost, you know, when he was saying that she's fired live, reprising his Apprentice role. J.D. Vance was out on Fox News earlier. The senator was asked about Trump's mood, how he's actually really feeling. And this is what he said. I think he feels extremely confident about how we're doing in the election. I think he's very excited about getting to work and solving the problems for the American people. But he's just having a good time. He's laughing, he's telling jokes. He calls people and just wants to, you know, shoot the breeze and understand what's happening in the country. Does that match up with what you're hearing about how he's actually feeling? No. I mean, it doesn't mean that he's not having phone calls that are like that. And it doesn't mean that he's not having moments when he's like that because he he is capable of both. Even when he's in a bad place. And I think he got into a better place when Tim Walz was picked. He was feeling better about that than had it been. Josh SHAPIRO, Pennsylvania. But no, I think that he's he's still is clearly disoriented and not sure where he wants to go. I have to say, though, just in terms of that clip from J.D. Vance, Vance has been actually performing not just the way that they had hoped that he would in terms of being an attack dog, which is what the VP nominee is supposed to do historically. But he's actually delivering a more coherent message than Trump is about. HARRIS And about, you know, returning to the days of Trump, which polls generally show that voters liked aspects of like the economic message. Trump talking about the economy today is what his advisers wanted him to do, because that's an area that he does well on against. HARRIS Still, she does better than Biden did against Trump, but that is still one of his calling cards and he still would prefer to attack. Yeah. And Vance, meanwhile, today was taking questions on inflation and talking about yes, it was they were good numbers for Biden today. But what it meant overall for for voters on this issue, you know, Trump is going to do another press conference tomorrow from a different property, not Mar-A-Lago. He'll be doing it from his Bedminster club. What is your sense from the campaign of why he's doing these these press conferences but not really doing a lot of rallies? He's only had one that was in Montana last week. I think some of it is about not spending money. I think some of it is about the fact that this is an easy way to contrast with her, and that's the main one, her being Kamala Harris, in terms of answering questions. They are very, very focused on the fact that she's not doing interviews and she's not doing press conferences, which is an issue that strategists care about and an issue that almost no voters care about whatsoever. And so that's fine if that's what they want to talk about. And it gets them a lot of free media coverage. And breaking into media coverage has been a bit of an obsession of his and trying to break up her momentum. Look, she is likely to have another at least ten good days. We are heading into the convention. It is going to go through, you know, the weekend after this one. And that has been vexing to him. He likes inserting himself in the news cycle, as we both know. Well, can we talk about Miriam Adelson, because you've been reporting she is a mega donor of mega-donors, has is supporting Trump was at the Republican convention, but she's going to Mar-A-Lago this week meeting with Trump or going to Bedminster this week and meeting with Trump after he had had the aide who print out all of his articles and clips and gives them to him, fire off some pretty harsh text to her. So again, this story that Jonathan Swan and I did over the weekend, we had reporting in there that part of part of Trump's anger and how his anger is seeping out and this sort of erratic behavior that people around him are seeing and, you know, see during times of stress has been in the form of having his aide known as the human printer, Natalie Hart, because she carries around a wireless printer, send texts to Miriam Adelson, who is funding a super PAC to the tune of tens of millions of dollars called Preserve America, saying that it's being run by rhinos. And I just would like to make the point that one of the people running it is is Governor Abbott of Texas, this adviser. He's not a rhino saying her husband never would have tolerated it. This caused a lot of concern that she was going to scale back her, giving her her advisers found out that Ike Perlmutter, the former chairman of Marvel Entertainment, who is a Trump ally and runs a defense or is involved in a different super PAC, had been ginning up these attacks against her. So it's a mess and it's a mess that the Trump world would like to not be dealing with. She will be at Bedminster tomorrow. They are going to meet privately. Clearly, it's not impacting her giving. But this is not a story that, you know, any candidate wants to be dealing with.