Donald Trump is very angry, and he's not even trying to hide it.
The day before the Democratic National Convention, Trump ramped up his “Truth Social” posts as Vice President Kamala Harris toured one of the key battleground states where voters recently upset Trump in the polls.
The former president posted or reposted his own content more than 25 times on his Truth Social account on Sunday, flooding his followers' feeds with insane rants, false claims and AI-generated images of Taylor Swift fans supporting his campaign.
“I accept!” he wrote above a screenshot of a fake Swiftie, apparently referring to their fake support.
The images were originally posted to X on Friday and Saturday by two popular right-wing accounts, one of which mixed synthetic images with a real photo of a blonde woman wearing a “Swifties for Trump” shirt at the rally. (The phrase briefly trended on the platform on Friday night, but there is no evidence that a larger such movement exists.)
He also shared a New York Post image generated by the same X account earlier this weekend showing Harris speaking in front of communist symbols. About XThe Twitter account, which recently began posting again after months of silence, shared an AI-generated image of Ms Harris addressing a crowd of communists at the Democratic National Convention, which doesn't start until Monday. The origins of the image are unclear.
When asked by CNN for comment on the second altered image, a Trump campaign spokesperson responded to the first's headline, coined the word “camnism.”
Trump continued to tap into the afternoon and evening, with another post about rally size, one of his favorite recent topics.
“Yesterday we had to turn away a large crowd in Wilkes-Barre, PA, long before the rally began, as the empty seats were revealed in the early afternoon due to Comrade Kamala Harris' social media activity. In fact, we had to turn away 11,500 people!,” he wrote. “She is a twisted Radical Left politician and always will be!”
Harris' emergency manager, Amar Moosa, responded to X with a (real) photo showing the small turnout at Trump's Pennsylvania rally.
“Donald Trump doesn't want anyone to know that he spoke to an empty arena yesterday,” Musa tweeted. “Don't say that. Really. Don't say that.”
Jeff Timmer, a former executive director of the Michigan Republican Party and now a senior adviser to the Lincoln Project, also noticed Trump's attempts to respond.
“Today it seems someone woke up in a panic, rambling in bed,” he said. Tweeted.
Trump also seemed infuriated after CNN commentator Van Jones praised Harris' economic policies on air earlier this week, criticizing him during a break.
“Thank goodness we're finally hearing positive things from Democrats about price gouging,” Jones said during an appearance on The Situation Room on Friday, according to The Hill. He also praised Harris for her “strength” and “politics of joy.”
“Lightweight political commentator Van Jones broke down in tears in the Oval Office and begged me to help get criminal justice reform passed by the United States Senate,” Trump wrote alongside a screenshot of the comments.
“I got this done with the help of the Conservatives and this sleazy Jones never called to thank me or any of my co-workers for what we'd done,” he complained.
Trump also reminded his supporters that he has done more for black Americans during his time in office than any other president, with one possible exception.
“From Opportunity Zones to long term funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities, I have done more for Black people than anyone except maybe Abraham Lincoln!!! Sorry but that's the reality!!!”
This is an old argument of his, one he has made many times. Tweet(Experts told The Washington Post in 2020 that other presidents who have done more for black civil rights than Trump include Lyndon B. Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, Harry Truman and Barack Obama.)
Jones noted Monday that Trump appeared to be weakened by the decline in media coverage in the weeks since President Joe Biden announced he would not seek reelection, paving the way for Harris' candidacy and rekindling Democratic hopes.
“He's failing, he's floundering. Look, they're saying this is the worst three weeks of his campaign,” the CNN contributor told Anderson Cooper. “That's what the media is saying.”
“This is the year he was indicted, convicted, shot, actually taken a bullet, and that's not as bad for him as it is for him not to get the attention that Kamala got.”
A New York Times/Siena College poll released over the weekend found Harris leading Trump by four points in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, five points in Arizona and two points in North Carolina (Trump holds one point lead in Nevada and a four point lead in Georgia).
Ms. Harris also overtook Mr. Trump at the national level for the first time. An ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll conducted Sunday showed her leading by 3 points among voters in a race that also included third-party candidates such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In head-to-head races between Mr. Trump and Ms. Harris, she leads even further, with 49% approval to Mr. Trump's 45%.
