Trump is only amping up his antics ahead of the midterm election

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While President Donald Trump’s personal behavior is often strange, his conduct over the last 12 days has been pretty remarkable — especially with the midterm election around the corner.

He’s offered voters what even some Republicans say amounts to a bribe. He’s threatened (jokingly?) to withhold disaster aid from a state if it doesn’t elect a GOP senator. Ahead of the 25th anniversary of 9/11, he told a dubious story about his proximity to Ground Zero . He’s baselessly suggested Democrats conspired to kill him. He’s threatened to halt all foreign trade. He’s holding the future of the Kennedy Center hostage if judges don’t allow him to put his name on it. And now he’s denying certain media outlets , including CNN, access to the White House.

One of the most underestimated reasons for the decline in Trump’s political fortunes is Americans’ loss of faith in his leadership capabilities.

Polling in recent months has shown:

67% of Americans said he doesn’t carefully consider important decisions.

71% said he’s not “even-tempered.”

And more than 7 in 10 adults and registered voters said he doesn’t even have a plan for the Iran war, according to both Fox News and CNN polling.

And in the runup to the 2026 midterm elections, he’s doing very little to disabuse people of these notions.

Trump’s offer of $5,000 to every adult US citizen if Republicans keep their House and Senate majorities is certainly a quid pro quo. Registered voters say 66%-18% that it’s “inappropriate.”

His joke-y threat Wednesday to withhold disaster aid from North Carolina if it elects a Democratic senator is also eyebrow-raising. Trump said he was kidding, but his track record makes clear his administration has discriminated against blue states on such things. And it’s a pretty unfunny thing to even joke about.

His tale ahead of the 9/11 anniversary about firefighters carrying him away amid fears of a building collapse was unconfirmed and misleading at best, as CNN’s Daniel Dale wrote . And to the extent the story is embellished, it sounds a lot like the president stealing valor.

Trump also claimed this week that the 2024 assassination attempt against him in Butler, Pennsylvania, was “ a Democrat Plot, to get me out of the Election ” — an explosive claim, if there were any truth to it. But there remains no evidence that any Democrats were involved and he didn’t provide any more detail. Indeed, attempted assassin Thomas Crooks was a registered Republican. And even the same day as Trump’s comments, FBI Director Kash Patel testified that there was “no evidence” that Crooks “was literally even speaking to any other human being other than his parents.”

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Trump repeatedly threatened to halt large portions of US foreign trade — including with all countries with whom the US has a trade deficit — if the Federal Reserve doesn’t lower interest rates. “If we stop trading with every country that we have a deficit with, which is most of them, and which would be very easy to do, we’d make at least $1.5 trillion a year,” Trump claimed Wednesday in North Carolina. That logic makes no sense .

By Friday, Trump suddenly announced he was “banning” CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House “effective immediately,” catching even some of his own staff off guard. A CNN reporter was denied access to White House grounds Saturday morning and her press pass was seized. A reporter for Politico and a reporter and photographer for MS NOW were also denied access.

Some of the other examples of Trump’s behavior are a little more small-bore, but curious nonetheless.

Trump on Tuesday suggested the Supreme Court justices he nominated might have misrepresented their intentions, saying that they were “ not the people I interviewed ” and “are merely a shell of their original selves.” He broke with longstanding US foreign policy protocol by praising the prospect of the reunification of Ireland. He called concerns about AI safety a “hoax” despite large swaths of Americans being quite concerned about that topic.

And finally, Trump has spent much of this week angling for a way to force the courts to let him put his name on the Kennedy Center, despite that being apparently illegal. Trump is now explicitly suggesting he might let the institution wither and die if he doesn’t get what he wants .

It seems like a long time ago, but the talk during Trump’s first term was often about his “temperament” and his tweets. His conduct has surely desensitized Americans to some degree.

But these seem like the kinds of behaviors he’d want to rein in ahead of a midterm election where his party’s grip on power is on the line and voters have real doubts about his steadiness as a leader.

Trump has gone in the other direction, by upping the antics.

塞缪尔·科鲁姆/西帕/彭博社/盖蒂图片社

虽然唐纳德·特朗普总统的个人行为常常令人费解，但他在过去 12 天里的行为尤其引人注目——尤其是在中期选举即将到来之际。

他向选民提供的条件，甚至连一些共和党人都认为无异于贿赂。他（或许是开玩笑地）威胁说，如果某个州不选出一位共和党参议员，他就扣留该州的灾难援助。在9·11事件25周年纪念日前夕，他编造了一个关于自己与世贸中心遗址距离很近的可疑故事。他毫无根据地暗示民主党人密谋杀害他。他威胁要停止所有对外贸易。如果法官不允许他以自己的名字命名肯尼迪中心，他就威胁要挟关押该中心的未来。现在，他又拒绝包括CNN在内的某些媒体进入白宫。

导致特朗普政治生涯走下坡路的最被低估的原因之一是美国民众对他领导能力的丧失信心。

近几个月的民意调查显示：

67%的美国人表示他没有认真考虑重要决定。

71%的人说他“脾气不好”。

根据福克斯新闻和CNN的民意调查，超过十分之七的成年人和登记选民表示，他甚至没有应对伊朗战争的计划。

在2026年中期选举临近之际，他几乎没有采取任何措施来消除人们对这些想法的疑虑。

特朗普承诺，如果共和党保住参众两院的多数席位，就向每位成年美国公民发放5000美元，这显然是一种交换条件。登记选民中，66%的人认为这种做法“不妥”，只有18%的人持相同看法。

他周三半开玩笑地威胁说，如果北卡罗来纳州选出一位民主党参议员，就要扣留对该州的灾难援助，这番言论也令人侧目。特朗普声称自己是在开玩笑，但他的过往记录清楚地表明，他的政府在这类事情上歧视民主党执政的州。而且，拿这种事开玩笑也一点都不好笑。

在9·11事件周年纪念日前夕，他讲述了自己因担心大楼倒塌而被消防员抬走的故事，但正如CNN记者丹尼尔·戴尔所写，这个故事未经证实，充其量也只能说是误导性的。而且，如果这个故事有所夸大，听起来很像是总统在窃取自己的功绩。

特朗普本周还声称，2024年发生在宾夕法尼亚州巴特勒的针对他的暗杀未遂事件是“民主党人的阴谋，目的是让我退出选举”——如果属实，这将是一个爆炸性的说法。但目前没有任何证据表明有任何民主党人参与其中，他也没有提供更多细节。事实上，试图行刺的托马斯·克鲁克斯是一名注册共和党人。甚至在特朗普发表上述言论的同一天，联邦调查局局长卡什·帕特尔作证说，“没有任何证据”表明克鲁克斯“除了他的父母之外，还与任何其他人交谈过”。

安娜·莫尼梅克/盖蒂图片社/档案照片

特朗普多次威胁称，如果美联储不降低利率，他将停止美国大部分对外贸易——包括与所有存在贸易逆差的国家的贸易。“如果我们停止与所有存在贸易逆差的国家进行贸易，而这些国家几乎占了绝大多数，而且这很容易做到，我们每年至少可以节省1.5万亿美元，”特朗普周三在北卡罗来纳州声称。这种逻辑根本站不住脚。

周五，特朗普突然宣布“立即禁止”CNN、MS NOW和Politico进入白宫，甚至连他的一些工作人员都措手不及。周六上午，一名CNN记者被拒绝进入白宫，她的记者证也被没收。Politico的一名记者以及MS NOW的一名记者和一名摄影师也被拒绝进入。

特朗普的其他一些行为虽然比较琐碎，但也令人好奇。

特朗普周二暗示，他提名的最高法院大法官可能歪曲了他们的本意，称他们“并非我面试时所认识的那些人”，并且“只是他们原本的空壳”。他打破了美国长期以来的外交政策惯例，赞扬了爱尔兰统一的前景。尽管许多美国人对人工智能安全问题十分关注，但他仍称对此的担忧是“骗局”。

最后，尽管肯尼迪中心以他的名字命名显然违法，但特朗普本周大部分时间都在想方设法迫使法院允许他将自己的名字加在中心名称上。特朗普现在明确暗示，如果他的要求得不到满足，他可能会让这个机构逐渐衰落直至消亡。

虽然感觉已经过去很久了，但在特朗普的第一任期内，人们经常谈论他的“脾气”和他的推文。他的行为无疑在某种程度上麻木了美国民众。

但这些行为似乎是他希望在中期选举前加以约束的，因为届时他所在政党的执政地位将受到考验，选民们对他作为领导人的稳定性也存在真正的疑虑。

特朗普则反其道而行之，变本加厉地哗众取宠。