With just three weeks until Election Day, and President
Trump on the defensive in every major battleground state, the president’s top aides know they must change the trajectory of the race.
So as Mr. Trump returns to the campaign trail this week after being hospitalized for his coronavirus infection,
his advisers are sending him out with a teleprompter, as they at times did before his diagnosis, in hopes he’ll drive
a more coherent message against his Democratic opponent, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
And on Tuesday night, in a more pointed effort to nudge Mr. Trump toward his script, the president’s campaign also shared excerpts with reporters of
the speech they said he would deliver upon landing for his rally in Johnstown, Pa., about 70 miles east of Pittsburgh.
Mr. Trump did read
some of the staff-written remarks in his speech, which lasted just over an hour.
But the president also made clear he had other issues on his mind besides the populist message that his campaign wanted him to give in Johnstown. Namely,
how embarrassing it would be to lose to an opponent he has repeatedly mocked as being senile. Trailing by double digits in national surveys and by similarly daunting margins in critical states like Pennsylvania,
the president seemed preoccupied with the idea of losing.
“I’m running against the single worst candidate in the history of presidential politics, and you know what that does?” Mr. Trump said. “That puts more pressure on me.” He added: “Can you imagine if you lose to a guy like this? It’s unbelievable. He has no idea what he’s saying. How the hell do you lose to a guy like this, is this possible? Oh, I’ll never come to Pennsylvania again.”
Bizarrely, Trump predicted that his fortunes with female voters, who in the recent Times survey were supporting Mr. Biden by 15 points, would turn around.
“We’re going to see that the women really like Trump a lot,” Mr. Trump said, repeating the falsehood that he won women with 52 percent of the vote in 2016 (Hillary Clinton won 54 percent of women, according to exit polls).
Perhaps the most striking language from Mr. Trump’s speech that was not included in his prepared text was an acknowledgment that he is practicing “risky” behavior by appearing in public so soon after falling ill with a highly contagious disease.
“I got to get out and I have to meet people and I have to see people, and
I know it’s risky to do that,” he said. “But you have to do what you have to do. You know, I’m the president, I can’t sit in the basement and say, ‘Let’s wait this thing out.’ Now, I’m immune. I could come down and start kissing everybody,” he told his supporters, echoing a line he used the day before in Florida. “
I’ll kiss every guy — man and woman. Look at that guy, how handsome he is. I’ll kiss him. Not with a lot of enjoyment, but that’s OK.”