With less than two weeks until Election Day, former Trump allies are sounding the alarm that Donald Trump is not the same man they knew.
Speaking with Kaitlan Collins on CNN’s The Source On Thursday evening, former White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews agreed that the Republican presidential nominee had become “unstable” and no longer resembled the man who captured the nation’s attention when he descended a golden escalator at Trump’s in 2015 Tower.
“That was my warning to Republican voters,” Matthews told Collins. “This is not the same man I worked for. I think something inside him broke during the 2020 election. He couldn’t accept that loss and he started to unravel.”
Matthews argued that Trump, who early in his political career harbored a vision of “Make America Great Again,” has since evolved into a far-right ideologue who is “absolutely out for revenge and retaliation.”
“She’s focused on solutions, he’s focused on petty arguments and getting revenge on people,” Matthews said, comparing Trump to Vice President Kamala Harris.
As Trump’s politics have taken a turn toward violence, the 78-year-old’s mental acuity has also declined, with the one-time bully struggles to avoid verbal blunders during his public appearances. And the trouble continues: Speaking at a Turning Point Action event in Las Vegas on Thursday, Trump apparently failed when he tried to talk about his plan to eliminate taxes from tips, instead offering a muddled word salad while he tried to cover his tracks.
“Increasing the so-called tipola – you know she, she, she wants – when I said no tax on tips, remember?” Trump told the crowd.
In recent weeks, Trump has dodged regular news appearances, even going so far as to break election tradition refuse to sit down for one 60 minutes interview in September, which he reportedly withdrew at the last minute due to fears the rigorous show would fact check it.
Instead, Trump has relegated his TV appearances to friendlier, more sycophantic networks, including Fox News, whose host Maria Bartiromo did not interrupt or correct Trump when he claimed that the real threat on Election Day is the “enemy from within,” while he suggested that the military should engage in violence when dealing with the election results.
