Welcome to Trump’s Lame-Duck Era

Chief of staff Susie Wiles and other advisers urged Trump to hit the campaign trail, appealing to him as a savior. He planned an ambitious campaign sprint to help Republicans stave off a midterm disaster: 32 competitive congressional districts in a single month, a rush of the trademark rallies that had powered his political rise. But even as Trump returned to the trail with renewed intensity, he repeatedly veered off message, generating the kinds of controversies his advisers hoped he would avoid. At a rally in South Carolina, he praised a supporter who appeared to punch a protester, comparing him to former heavyweight boxing champion Evander Holyfield. He even seemed to mock the unquestioning loyalty of his own supporters. “I could say the stupidest things and you’d clap me,” he told one crowd in Clarksville, Tenn. 

Trump tried to recreate a strategy from his 2024 campaign, seeking to reach low-propensity voters through nonpolitical channels and the alternative media platforms that Americans were increasingly consuming. Aides enlisted professional athletes and other celebrity validators who could lend local appeal at campaign stops. They brought Baltimore Ravens players to an event in Maryland and University of Georgia football legend Todd Gurley to a rally in the Peach State. They brought the boxer Jake Paul to another in Youngstown, Ohio. They brought Nicki Minaj, the best-selling female rapper of all time, onto the campaign trail in Michigan, where Trump praised her for having “one hell of a beautiful ass” that was “hard to miss.” Later, aides mischievously floated the prospect of Minaj serving as Trump’s next White House press secretary.