Aides to former Donald Trump are reportedly trying to get the former president off the golf course and onto the campaign trail.
But as his family visits his Bedminster, New Jersey golf course in August, the president seems to prefer hitting the links and appeared bored during a press conference at the course earlier this month. He didn’t seem too pleased about attending a fundraiser with donor Miriam Adelson either, The Washington Post reports.
In public, he mentioned remaining at home during the Democratic National Convention, declining to take on Vice President Kamala Harris in the fight for the next news cycle.
Former aides told The Post that Trump prefers to have a less hectic schedule during his family’s time in Bedminster when he mostly spends time on the course. But aides, speaking anonymously, also told the paper that they didn’t want the former president sitting at home watching the Democratic convention and getting irate.
Trump has also become frustrated with the news coverage which has showed him taking a lax approach to campaigning compared to his opponent.
The campaign reacted by scheduling events to counterprogram the Democratic convention, even as the leading man appeared reluctant to stick to the script. He frequently veered off the stated subject of his remarks, revealing his continuing struggle to find his place in the upended race which saw the quick ascension of Harris following President Joe Biden dropping out and endorsing her last month.
Former Trump White House spokesperson Alyssa Farah Griffin quit her job after the insurrection on January 6, 2021.
“The stakes for Trump this election are arguably the highest they’ve ever been. His criminal cases don’t go away if he loses. Yet he seems to be phoning it in, running a remarkably low-energy, undisciplined campaign,” she told The Post.
“From spending days off the campaign trail golfing to coming up with frankly weak nicknames like ‘Kamabala,’ it feels like he’s lost his mojo,” she added.
Trump spokesperson Steve Cheung told the paper that Trump has had a “robust schedule” since the beginning of his campaign.
“He spent the entire week discussing substantive policy, something that Kamala Harris refuses to do, or can’t do,” he said.
Trump doesn’t enjoy reading policy-oriented speeches that don’t entertain a live audience, a person close to the campaign told The Post.
The former president has attempted to brand Harris as a “communist” and on Wednesday mocked his aides for trying to get him to focus on policy and less on personal attacks.
On Thursday, as he spoke at the southern border, Trump chose to attack the Democrats for picking Harris to replace Biden instead of focusing on Harris’s immigration policies.
He spoke to the press on Friday in Las Vegas, Nevada, claiming to be “doing great” when asked about if the change atop the Democratic ticket had him rattled. But he then said the change had been “unfair.”
“I spent $100 million fighting against a man that won in their party, and we had a debate and the debate was good for me,” he told reporters. “And then all of a sudden they take him out and they put somebody new in that never got a vote.”
