Despite how ubiquitous, prolix, and attention-seeking as he is, sometimes it’s still hard to know what makes President Trump do the things he does.
Why, for example, is he so fixated on “acquiring” places like Greenland? Why is he obsessed with renaming things and changing the maps? Shouldn’t he be too busy presidenting to care about whatever Bill Maher said about him? And what the hell is with all the butt talk lately?
We’ll leave that to psychiatrists to solve. But, most bizarre and baffling of all, Trump has seemed determined to help Republicans lose their midterm elections all over the country — and it’s anyone’s guess as to why.
Maybe it’s because he’s not on the ballot. Maybe he secretly misses sparring with Democrats while Republicans have had total control of Congress. Maybe he’s just bored. Who knows?
Thankfully, Trump’s inner workings will likely remain a mystery. But sometimes, he just comes out and tells us what he’s thinking. It’s in these moments, when he says the quiet part out loud, that we often learn the most about him.
Over the weekend, with just over a week to go before elections, Trump was on the stump in places Republicans should be doing much better in. But again, because of his inexplicable decisions — to prosecute a war no one wanted in an election year, to intentionally throw grenades into safe Republican primaries, to say things like “affordability is a hoax” — his rambling and untethered rallies have made for some odd final moments.
During a Georgia rally, he went on a long riff that can only be described as political suicide — or is it homicide? Either way, it was nuts.
“The United States oil and gas business is making hundreds of billions of dollars,” he crowed.
And then he told on himself. “But my people said, ‘Please don’t mention that, sir.’ Because people are paying a little higher…. No, I could just see the fake headlines. ‘President Trump is talking about all the money they’re making while the people are suffering at the pump. That’ll be the headline. But I said, ‘I don’t give a damn. I’m gonna say it.’ We’re making a freaking fortune.”
Now, this was revealing in two ways. There’d been a thought among politicos that maybe his inner circle wasn’t telling him how impolitic and imprudent it was to diminish the pain Americans are feeling, to call that pain a hoax, and to brag about inflation, the war, tariffs, and how much oil companies have made.
After all, also over the weekend, Trump told a conservative news outlet that his approval is in the 60s. It is not. It’s about 30 points south of that.
But clearly, that wasn’t the case. He was told, and he didn’t care.
That’s the second revelation. He doesn’t care who this messaging — and one has to assume the policies behind them — hurts. That goes for American voters, as well as Republican candidates.
This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention. Trump’s priorities as president seem to be lining his own pockets and building monuments to himself.
But to hear him say it so clearly, 10 days before a midterm election, admittedly against the advice of his team, is pretty astonishing.
“I don’t care about your pain” — a reverse Clinton — certainly isn’t a strategy we’ve seen work…ever, anywhere. And it’s one helluva closing argument.
He might not care that his policies have hurt you. But you do. He might not be worried about the future. But you are. He might not care, for whatever reason, about these elections. But you should.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.
