It’s not over. And it’s likely to end badly.
In an interview on CNN last night, Donald Trump suggested that Megyn Kelly’s tough questioning was inspired by her menstrual cycle. “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes,” Trump told CNN's Don Lemon on Friday night. “Blood coming out of her—wherever.”
He refused to apologize, of course, but after widespread condemnation, Trump, who is running on candor and straight talk, sought to explain his comments in a Tweet. “Re Megyn Kelly quote: ‘you could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever’ (NOSE). Just got on w/thought.’”
It’s a comment that might end any other presidential campaign. Trump is different, in part because this isn’t a campaign. It’s an extended media-driven ego ride.
From the beginning, he’s played by different rules because the media have let him. Trump works just blocks from the headquarters of the major broadcast and cable outlets. But as he’s rolled out his Trump for President brand, he has gotten journalists to come to him. He sits for interviews in the gilded atrium of Trump Towers, a nice home field advantage and one that sets him apart from the other politicians sitting in boring studios.
Trump has conducted frequent telephone interviews on cable networks, sometimes several times a day, and last weekend did “phoners” on two Sunday morning political shows. (Has any other candidate this cycle, in either party, been given an opportunity to do a television interview by phone?) If he were asked policy questions, the arrangement would give him an unfair advantage, with the opportunity to answer questions with a cheat sheet in front of him and Google at his fingertips. But substantive questions about the country and its problems are the exceptions in Trump’s conversations with journalists, who prefer to ask him about his latest controversial comment or seek to provoke the next one by asking him about his opponents. (Trump’s comments about Kelly didn’t provoke any follow-up questions from CNN host Don Lemon, whose interview with Trump continued for several more minutes). So the cycle continues: Trump says something outrageous that may or may not have any relevance to serving as president, he’s asked about it in a largely substance-free interview, and ratings climb—along with Trump’s name ID and poll ratings.
Trump is right, sadly, when he boasts that he is partly responsible for the 24 million viewers who tuned into the debate Thursday night. He has convinced himself that people watch because they love him and in a limited sense, he’s probably right about that, too. While I suspect that the Trump hype is driven by curiosity more than admiration, there is no doubt some segment of the population that is properly understood now as “Trump supporters.” That segment is small and will be shrinking in the coming weeks, but it won’t disappear.
The true Trump apologists are way too far in now. They've invested too much to bail on him. So his defenders will become increasingly desperate to convince people that this is all part of the establishment's failure to understand their anger and the media's failure to appreciate Trump’s appeal.
That’s backwards. It's not that the media have failed to give Trump enough credit; we’ve given his supporters too much. We assumed that at some point they'd embarrassed to be associated with him: If not his slander of Mexican immigrants, then perhaps his mockery of POWs; if not his kindergarten Twitter insults, then perhaps his sad and compulsive boasting; if not his incomprehensible answers to substantive questions at the debate, then maybe, finally, his juvenile and misogynistic put-down of the female moderator
Those who still remain Trump supporters seem to be beyond shame. It doesn’t matter that they’re angry about the incompetence in Washington. Turning to Trump to solve the problems in Washington is like turning to an ape to fix a broken refrigerator. It’s embarrassing, but rather than embarrassment, the Trump followers will feel more anger and their pose will shift from self-righteousness to victimhood. And many of them will dig in further.
More worrisome, for conservatives and for the country, so will Trump. As he’s abandoned by more rational beings, Trump, a man of deep and evident insecurity, will need these remaining supporters as validation that it’s the world that’s gone crazy, not him. They will encourage him to march on, guided by the misapprehension that there are many more behind them, perhaps hard to see, but following in the distance nonetheless. Trump will tout this support and insist, unconstrained by reality, that he can win. (This is the man who continues to say Hispanics love him and will support him, despite polls showing his favorability among Hispanics in the mid-teens).
As Republicans scramble to distance themselves—with many candidates denouncing his remarks about Kelly, as they had his mockery of John McCain—Trump will feel the swelling pride of a man whose bluff is being called. Treat me nicely or I’ll leave, he warned repeatedly.
This is why Bret Baier’s first question Thursday was the single most important question of the debate. Although Trump had left open the possibility of running third party, in the days leading up to the debate he had backed away from those threats. “I’m pretty confident in the answers I’ve gotten from him,” Sean Hannity said Wednesday night. “I’ve asked him a few times. I’m pretty confident he’ll never run third party.”
Less than twenty-four hours later, Trump reversed himself again, raising his hand to show he wouldn't pledge support for the eventual Republican nominee. When Baier asked if Trump meant to be conveying what he seemed to be saying, Trump responded, twice: “I fully understand.”
Trump threatened to leave if Republicans treated him badly. Now, because he’s a churl and a buffoon, Republicans have no choice but to treat him badly.
It’s foolish to pretend to know how it all ends. But one thing is certain: It won’t end well.
