Donald Trump sounds like a guy who’s trying to finish himself off

| 10:13 pm EDT August 7, 2019
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Donald Trump spent the past few days being widely blamed for the mass shooting in El Paso, which was carried out by a white supremacist whose rhetoric closely mirrored his own, and for the mass shooting in Dayton, which could potentially have been prevented if Trump and his party weren’t blocking gun control legislation.

Today was supposed to be the day where Donald Trump turned that all around. He planned a trip to El Paso and Dayton so he could deliver a generic conciliatory message, hunt for photo-ops, and pressure the local politicians into uncomfortably standing beside him. Somewhere along the way, however, Trump said to himself – for lack of a better way of putting it – to hell with it all.

Maybe Trump figured out the night before the trip that it was going to be a bust for him when El Paso area Congresswoman Veronica Escobar announced she was refusing to meet with him, and popular El Paso political figure Beto O’Rourke ripped into him as well. Or maybe Trump just didn’t like the idea of trying to make peace with a nation that largely hates him. Whatever prompted Trump to short circuit, he did precisely that.

Donald Trump has now spent the past twenty-four hours attacking everyone and everything. From his vicious attack on Beto O’Rourke last night, to his incoherent attack on the Mayor of Dayton this afternoon, to his buffoonish attack on Shepard Smith, to his illiterate attack on Joaquin Castro this evening, Trump very much made sure that the news cycle ended reporting on just how much of a divisive jerk he was today.

Was Donald Trump punishing his handlers for forcing him to go through with his preposterous visits to El Paso and Dayton? Did Trump realize the day was going to be a losing one for him anyway, and he decided to call an audible? Or did the guy just snap under the pressure? Whatever Trump was doing today, it sure didn’t help him. At this point, there may be no helping the guy.