Trump's allies reportedly see him as 'sullen,' 'erratic,' and 'exhausted' by the campaign
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A report printed in The New York Times on Sunday reveals that advisers and confidants of the Donald Trump campaign are frustrated with their candidate's prospects and temperament.
About 20 Trump allies spoke to the paper on condition of anonymity, saying that in private, Trump's "mood is often sullen and erratic" as he obsesses over individual negative news stories and petty disagreements. Trump is described as "exhausted, frustrated, and still bewildered by fine points of the political process and why his incendiary approach seems to be sputtering," and he is reportedly surrounded by similarly frustrated staff at their wit's end as to how to tame the nominee's worst political instincts.
Trump himself vehemently denied the story's allegations Saturday afternoon in tweets saying he is "truly enjoying" himself on the campaign trail and calling the Times "a newspaper of fiction" which uses "non-existent unnamed sources." Trump also threatened Saturday evening to revoke The Times' press credentials for his events.
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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