After Thursday night’s audacious performance at the Republican debates, Donald Trump continued to unapologetically stick his foot in his mouth all weekend. His antics seem to be finally hurting his presidential campaign.
Here’s a fun timeline:
On Friday, during an interview with Don Lemon on CNN Tonight, Trump accused Fox of asking “vicious,” unfair questions at the debate and called Kelly “overrated.”
Trump called the questions “ridiculous,” called Kelly “off-base,” and said, “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her wherever.”
Yeah. He went there. The fallout was immediate, and steep.
On Saturday, Trump was disinvited from an important gathering of major conservative figures in Atlanta. “As much as I do personally like Donald Trump, his comment about Megyn Kelly on CNN is a bridge too far for me,” Erick Erickson, organizer of this week’s RedState Gathering, wrote in a blog post on Friday night.
Erickson is an important figure in the conservative movement. Trump immediately began to backpedal. His team told Erickson that he meant to say “whatever” not “whereever” but Erickson didn’t buy it. Trump tweeted an explanation on Saturday.
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
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 8, 2015
Right.
On Saturday, Trump also claimed that he fired his campaign strategist, Roger Stone:
“Mr. Trump fired Roger Stone last night. We have a tremendously successful campaign and Roger wanted to use the campaign for his own personal publicity. He has had a number of articles about him recently and Mr. Trump wants to keep the focus of the campaign on how to Make America Great Again.”
Stone quickly took to twitter to dispute Trump’s account:
Sorry @realDonaldTrump didn’t fire me- I fired Trump. Diasagree with diversion to food fight with @megynkelly away core issue messages — Roger Stone (@RogerJStoneJr) August 8, 2015
Very anxious to see the direction of the Trump campaign from here and the next round of credible polls. #StandBy
— Roger Stone (@RogerJStoneJr) August 8, 2015
Friends of Stone told Politico that he had “increasingly felt that the campaign team surrounding Trump was feeding his bad habits: megalomania and peevishness.”
The morning after the debate, according to Politico, Stone had to fight Trump’s handlers to meet with him, and here’s what happened:
Stone: “Donald, stop with the Megyn Kelly shit. It’s fucking crazy. It’s killing us.”
Trump: “What do you mean? I won the debate. People loved it.”
Stone: “You didn’t win the debate.”
Trump: “Yes I did. Look at the polling. Look at Drudge.”
Stone: “The Drudge Report poll isn’t a scientific poll. You won’t give me the money to pay for a scientific poll. And you’re off-message.”
Trump: “There are other polls.”
Stone: “Those are bullshit polls, Donald. They’re not scientific polls. We need to run a professional campaign and talk about what people really care about.”
Trump: “We’re winning.”
Stone advised him to get back to the issues, but instead, Trump went on CNN and trashed Megyn Kelly.
On Sunday, Trump made the rounds of the morning news shows.
On NBC’s Meet the Press, Trump told host Chuck Todd that he “doesn’t mind apologizing” when he is wrong. but insisted that nothing he said regarding Megyn Kelly was wrong.
“There’s nothing to apologize (for),” said Trump. “I thought she asked a very, very unfair question. So did everyone on social media and I answered the question very well.”
“All I said is there is blood pouring out of her eyes and there was blood. And then I said you know what, I’m going to get on to the next sentence because frankly I don’t have to talk about the blood coming out of her ears and her nose. It’s a very common statement ,” Trump said.
On CNN’s State of the Union, Trump told host Jake Tapper, “I cherish women,” and insisted his remark wasn’t implying that Megyn asked tough questions because she was menstruating. “Who would say that?” Trump said. “Do you think I’d make a statement like that? Who would make a statement like that? Only a sick person would even think about that.”
How much longer do you think Trump’s campaign is going to last?
