Donald Trump Has Lost His Sh*t

His campaign is a mess. Over the weekend, The Atlantic published a devastating piece by Tim Alberta about the infighting in the campaign. You really should read it if you haven’t, it’s full of stunning details. The bottom line is as you might guess: The chaos emanates from the top.

But the most interesting thing about the Alberta piece is not any specific anecdote that appears in it. The most interesting thing about the Alberta piece is that it exists at all. That is to say, that all these key players in a presidential campaign are taking time out in the last month of the race (assuming that Alberta has been reporting the piece out for a little while) to gripe to a reporter instead of sticking to doing their jobs. It’s insane.

And you know what else it is? A sign that they’re preparing for a loss. I suppose it could be argued the other way—that Trump insiders are trying to ice rivals out of potential jobs in a new Trump administration. But I’ve covered lots of campaigns in my day, from president to City Council. The people who are laser-focused on winning never do this kind of preelection sniping. You only get this from people who worry that they’re going to lose and who don’t want to be blamed so they’re still considered employable. I have no doubt there are rivalries and grudges in the Harris campaign too. There always are. But we don’t know about them and won’t until the insider books come out. That’s the key difference.