Seems Tired

  

Photo by Getty Images via Forbes, April 2024.

From Fox News:

At the end of the interview, Attkisson asked Trump if he was not successful in his bid for president in November, could he see himself running again in four years? 

"No, I don’t. No, I don’t. I think that that will be, that will be it. I don’t see that at all," the former president answered. "I think that hopefully we’re gonna be successful."

It's been reported all over the place (I heard it on NPR), but I haven't seen anybody hearing what I hear, a huge change in the discourse, as I'll explain; especially coming, as it does, on top of his remarks suggesting Jewish voters might be responsible for bringing him down.

That's in the American Israeli Council "Fighting Anti-Semitism in America" event in Washington, where he appeared with huge donor and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient Miriam Adelson, expressing his disappointment that he got only 24% of the Jewish vote in 2016 and 29% in 2020, after all he accomplished for the Jewish people, and still four years after that is scoring only 40% of the Jewish vote (in fact it's 25%):

I'll put it to you very simply and as gently as I can, I wasn't treated properly by the voters who happen to be Jewish. I don't know. Do they know what the hell is happening if I don't win this election? And the Jewish people would really have a lot to do with that if that happens because at 40% that means 60% of the people are voting for the enemy. Israel, in my opinion, will cease to exist within two years, and I believe I'm 100% right. You know, there's a hat that comes out, Trump was right about everything and I believe I'm right and that's a hell of a thing to say. But I believe I'm right. If I do win, Israel will be safe and secure, we will stop the toxic poison of antisemitism from spreading here all over America. It's spreading, it's spreading like it's never spread before. I've never seen anything like it. I really believe it would be obliteration and it'll happen quickly, too. It's very close to happening. (Retyped from C-Span)

Note that point where he's trying (and failing) to work his way back into the teleprompter text, with the obvious Stephen Miller phrase "toxic poison" (Miller never allows himself to refrain from using an adjective just because it means the same thing as the noun), but can't manage until he gets to "obliteration".

Everybody's talking about one thing in this passage, the ratification of antisemitic conspiracy theories, which is understandable; Trump can't be talking here about the math of the Jewish vote, which couldn't make that kind of difference at maybe 2.4% of the electorate and much less in the swing states (except Pennsylvania, which could well be the crucial state, with 2.3%)—he must be talking about Jew magic, the Elders and their incantations, making all the plain folks vote for the communists.

I myself think Trump's mathematical understanding is really that weak and he may well think the Jews could defeat him on the sheer numbers, though that doesn't mean he's not an antisemite—he plainly is. Unforgettable how he told the American Israeli Council 2019:

A lot of you are in the real estate business, because I know you very well. You’re brutal killers, not nice people at all,” he said. “But you have to vote for me—you have no choice. You’re not gonna vote for Pocahontas, I can tell you that. You’re not gonna vote for the wealth tax. Yeah, let’s take 100% of your wealth away!”

But it's their intrinsically treacherous character he's thinking about there, not their occult powers.

What's interesting about the current phase is the note of discouragement in the antisemitism speech and the Atkisson interview, the recognition of the possibility that Trump and Vance might not be winning at all, the acknowledgment that he might get beaten, without cheating, just by voters, even if he thinks it could be mainly the Jewish voters.

I mean, just in these instances, not in every speech, and perhaps he was just tired and out of sorts for these occasions, but I'm pretty sure it's a first in his political career, or indeed his career all round, which has always run on his never admitting defeat or the possibility of defeat. 

This seems huge to me, if true.