Sarah Matthews, a former press aide to Donald Trump, said the former president is behaving with increasing desperation as his campaign flails against Vice President Kamala Harris’ momentum.
“I think that he feels this election slipping away from him, and that’s where you’re beginning to see him spiral and cling to these conspiracy theories, as you noted with the AI generated crowds, which obviously can be easily disproven,” Matthews said on MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki” Monday.
Trump on Sunday falsely accused Harris of using artificial intelligence to enhance the size of the crowd she drew at a rally in Michigan last week.
“That’s what happens when he gets desperate,” Matthews added, noting that Trump has also recently questioned Harris’ racial identity and ramped up his feud with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R).
“These are not winning campaign messages,” Matthews said. “But that is what he does when he feels like he’s under attack, is he uses these kinds of lines of defense that don’t make much sense for campaigning.”
“I can assure you that his campaign team is telling him to talk about policy,” she continued. “They want him to go out there and talk about the economy and immigration and things that voters actually care about, because I can assure you that none of these things that he’s talking about in his rallies, or his Truth Social posts, are things that are top of mind for most voters.”
According to the New York Times, the Republican nominee has often been in “a foul mood these past few weeks,” which the newspaper described as the “worst” weeks of his entire campaign. He has repeatedly launched incoherent attacks on his opponent, reportedly rattling wealthy donors.
Watch Matthews’ MSNBC appearance below.