1) Small crowds at his rallies
2) Small crowds at his rallies
3) Negative press coverage of small crowds at his rallies
Which is why, after his Tulsa, Oklahoma, rally on Saturday, every single person in the White House and on his 2020 campaign staff needs to be on high alert. Because everyone's job is on the line.
As CNN's Kaitlan Collins reported Monday about the President's state of mind:
"Despite claims he's not angry, multiple people said Trump's been seething since he got back from Tulsa. It's raised questions about his campaign manager's future, but others said his job isn't only one in jeopardy. Anyone, including WH aides, could be fired depending on coverage."
Which checks out. Because with an estimated 6,200 people at an arena that had a capacity of more than 19,000 -- and in the wake of Trump tweeting that there had been 1 million RSVPs -- it was clear from Trump's body language when he landed back at the White House from Oklahoma early Sunday morning that he was dejected, disappointed and angry.
I mean, check it out yourself. Does this look like a triumphant leader?
And we also know that Trump doesn't blame himself for much of anything.
After suggesting that injecting or ingesting disinfectants would fight the coronavirus, Trump was asked in April whether he took any responsibility for a spike in people doing just that. "No, I don't," he responded.
A month before, Trump was asked whether the lag in coronavirus testing was in any way, shape or form his fault. "No, I don't take responsibility at all," he said.
In that same press conference, Trump was also asked whether he took responsibility for disbanding the office of pandemics. The President called it "a nasty question" (it wasn't) before adding: "When you say 'me,' I didn't do it. We have a group of people [in the administration]. But I could perhaps ask Tony about that, because I don't know anything about it." ("Tony" is Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.)
Time and time again during his presidency, Trump has made clear he wants all the credit when anything even tangentially tied to his administration goes right and none of the blame when things go wrong. (Call it the Michael Scott theory of management.) He will always find someone to blame when something goes wrong. But that person will never be him.
So, do the math: Small crowd + Trump's love of scapegoating = Big trouble for anyone with their fingerprints on that Tulsa rally.
At the top of that list is Trump 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale.
"Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner are 'pissed' at campaign manager Brad Parscale over his predictions of a much larger crowd than the one that turned out at the Tulsa rally Saturday night, according to a Trump campaign source. ... The person said blame from this camp has focused squarely on Parscale, of whom some had already been skeptical. But some donors and allies feel the rally debacle — in which the campaign made a decision to inflate expectations about enthusiasm for the rally rather than manage them at a reasonable level — threw into sharp relief the existing management problems on the campaign, the person said."
Students of Trumpology know that when Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, turn on you, you are in deep trouble. (Trump's original 2016 campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, was removed after Ivanka and Jared turned on him.)
And Parscale has always been a somewhat controversial choice to run the re-election campaign of an incumbent president, having never had anything close to that sort of responsibility before. He served as the lead digital strategist for Trump's 2016 campaign, but prior to that had very little political experience. He had been doing work for Trump's company -- building a website, digital marketing and sales -- for several years prior to that, according to The Washington Post.
Plus, the history of Trump campaign managers has an eerie similarity to the history of Spinal Tap drummers. In the 2016 campaign, Lewandowski gave way to Paul Manafort (remember him!) who gave way to Kellyanne Conway. And throughout it all, there were whispers that Kushner or Ivanka (or both) were the real brains behind the operation. Or that Trump himself was effectively managing his own campaign, making all the important calls about what do say and do.
Parscale is, without question then, the most likely target of Trump's anger. But go back to Kaitlan's tweet -- this part in particular: "Anyone, including WH aides, could be fired depending on coverage."
The key -- and revealing -- bit there is "depending on coverage." Trump is seething, yes. But he's also watching cable TV. And taking calls. And making calls. And trying to suss out -- from all of that -- who the collective "they" are blaming for the Tulsa rally debacle. That, as much as his own sense, will determine who gets fired.
Because, again, Trump is all about perception: It's not about whose fault it really is that the crowd over the weekend didn't live up to the hype. (In truth, there's no way it's one person's fault.) It's about who the media, his friends and major party donors blame. That's the person Trump will blame.
On Monday afternoon, those close to the White House were insisting Parscale's job wasn't in jeopardy. Which may be true! But it's also hard to imagine that the Scapegoater-in-Chief will allow such a public embarrassment as the Tulsa rally go unpunished. It's just not in his nature.
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June 23, 2020 at 01:44AM
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Why everyone who works for Donald Trump should be *very* nervous right now - CNN
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