It was grim. Some 6,200 Trump faithful showed up to his Tulsa rally Saturday at a 19,000-seat capacity arena. Donald Trump's address to the supposed overflow crowd outside the arena was scrapped. And Trump's big win for the night was managing to take a sip of water with one hand, a feat he had clearly been practicing since his two-handed push at West Point. The crowd went wild.
By the end of the weekend, the Trump camp's reboot rally was more famous for its spectacle of vacancy and the half dozen (and rising) infected White House advance team than anything else. Though, to be fair, Trump did manage to draw some headlines for his insane announcement that he instructed his people to slow down testing for the coronavirus. Apparently, Trump's of the mind that it doesn't matter if hospitals are filling to capacity and deaths are spiking as long as fewer people test positive. If it wasn't official already, it sure as hell is now: We could not possibly have a dumber, more unfit president who is a bigger threat to the country than Donald Trump.
But for all his faults, Trump seems at least dimly aware that he's positioning himself to snatch defeat from the jaws of incumbency this November, and he's prepping, as always, to be aggrieved, victimized, and classless about it.
Monday morning, by the time all the rally reviews had thoroughly trashed him, Trump offered yet another prebuttal for the loss he's clearly anticipating.
"Because of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, 2020 will be the most RIGGED Election in our nations history - unless this stupidity is ended," Trump offered, adding that "they" are now using the coronavirus as an excuse "to cheat by using Mail-Ins!"
These are lies, naturally. Neither Trump nor his GOP allies have ever offered any evidence of widespread fraud associated with voting by mail. In fact, Trump himself has engaged in what he is now peddling as the highly criminal activity of voting by mail. There's also zero research, by the way, that mail-in voting gives one party an advantage over another. What is 100% verifiable is that voting by mail this November will save lives—but Trump isn't concerned about the unnecessary deaths his resistance will cause.
As Federal Election Commissioner Ellen Weintraub tweeted back at Trump: "There is still no basis for the conspiracy theory that voting by mail leads to massive fraud." Weintraub urged people to know the facts about voting by mail, linking to the FEC website.
Anyway, the bleeding continued Monday morning with high-level Trump officials running, not walking, toward the exit door. Senior economic adviser Kevin Hassett told reporters he was leaving the White House "really soon—maybe today," because frankly, no one who wants any shot at a post-White House career can flee Trumptanic fast enough.
Here's a quick reminder about how badly things are going for Trump's reelection: The Trump campaign is now lobbying to add an additional debate to the schedule—to add to the three that are already planned against Joe Biden. Put a pin in that thought, because a lot of GOP candidates appear to be looking for more debates against their opponents.