Donald Trump’s back-to-back interviews with Bret Baier on Fox News this week showed us something we’ve not seen before. He tripped over his own excuses and lies, as if all his previous in-the-moment defenses had been laid out before him like an obstacle course. He might have incriminated himself on his handling of classified documents. And he was made speechless—very briefly—when challenged for playing both good cop and bad cop on sentencing drug dealers. But it was Trump’s overall bearing that was so surprising. He seemed agitated, disconnected, and desperate. The guy who “fights” was flailing. And he looked thoroughly beatable.
Unable to bulldoze Baier or riff his way through tough questions, Trump’s spooky talent for seeming to bend reality in real time had abandoned him. That ability always rested on Trump’s connecting his personal grievances to those of his supporters. The lying and buffoonery become incidental to those who hear him speak a larger truth about their lives. But this time round, there was no larger truth. Trump was lying in service of something much smaller: surviving his legal challenges. So when he said, for example, that he couldn’t turn in boxes of classified materials because the documents were “interspersed” with “golf shirts, clothing, and pants,” he sounded merely ridiculous. And he seemed to know it. By the end of the second night’s interview, you could see the flop sweat glistening on his upper lip.
There’s an opportunity here for his Republican opponents. That only matters, however, if his opponents are prepared to beat him. Up till now, they’ve been in a bind. To win the GOP nomination, they need support from the new right; and to win the support of the new right, they need to side with Trump against the “deep state.” This has been Trump’s built-in advantage. But his weakened state offers a way out of the bind.
If you’re Ron DeSantis (or even to a lesser degree Nikki Haley or Tim Scott), you can now woo the new right while hitting Trump with your full arsenal. The line of attack might look something like this: Of course the establishment is trying to bring Donald Trump down. We are, without question, witnessing the political weaponization of law enforcement at the highest levels of government. This is banana-republic territory. So, I ask you: Why would you vote for someone like Donald Trump, who falls for every trap the deep state sets for him? If you’re serious about restoring justice in this country and saving us from the brink, do you really want someone who furnishes the enemy with damning tapes? Someone who’s left pleading innocence on the grounds that he still had to sort through his golf clothes? Donald Trump brags about his ability to make deals. But, as you know, you can’t cut deals with a corrupt system. You can’t let your guard down and you can’t underestimate the ruthlessness of our broken institutions. So do you want the guy who’s already lost to the enemy or someone who will take the fight to the establishment and win?
Instead of merely saying that Trump has been “reckless” in his handling of documents, you can say he’s been reckless with the trust of his supporters. It’s a case you can make at a campaign rally and on a debate stage against Trump himself. And if his recent appearances with Bret Baier are any indication, he won’t know what to do about it.
Donald Trump likes to say that the establishment is going after him to get his supporters. But for those who believe that, it’s looking more and more as if the establishment might get him after all. So, what good is he? The man who says, “I am your retribution” is boasting from a position of impotence.
Of course, if the new right enjoys losing—which isn’t impossible—then exploiting Trump’s failure won’t work. But if you’re trying to win the White House with a constituency that craves defeat, you’re already doomed. There’s blood in the water, so might as well give it a shot.