Den stora samlingstråden om Donald Trump

Monday, on a special election edition of 60 Minutes: Bill Whitaker sits down with Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz as the race for the White House enters its final month.

The Republican ticket declined 60 Minutes' interview request, after initially accepting.

https://x.com/60Minutes/status/1842684964627775917

Mr. Trump has appeared tired at times and has maintained a far less active campaign schedule this time around, holding only 61 rallies so far in 2024, compared with 283 through all of 2016, according to the Times analysis.

Now his rallies are powered as much by anger as anything else. His distortions and false claims have reached new levels. [...] During one 10-minute stretch in Mosinee, Wis., last month, for instance, he ping-ponged from topic to topic: Ms. Harris’s record; the virtues of the merit system; Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s endorsement; supposed corruption at the F.D.A., the C.D.C. and the W.H.O.; the Covid-19 pandemic; immigration; back to the W.H.O.; China; Mr. Biden’s age; Ms. Harris again; Mr. Biden again; chronic health problems and childhood diseases; back to Mr. Kennedy; the “Biden crime family”; the president’s State of the Union address; Franklin D. Roosevelt; the 25th Amendment; the “parasitic political class”; Election Day; back to immigration; Senator Tammy Baldwin; back to immigration; energy production; back to immigration; and Ms. Baldwin again.

According to a computer analysis by The New York Times, Mr. Trump’s rally speeches now last an average of 82 minutes, compared with 45 minutes in 2016. Proportionately, he uses 13 percent more all-or-nothing terms like “always” and “never” than he did eight years ago, which some experts consider a sign of advancing age.

Similarly, he uses 32 percent more negative words than positive words now, compared with 21 percent in 2016, which can be another indicator of cognitive change. And he uses swearwords 69 percent more often than he did when he first ran, a trend that could reflect what experts call disinhibition. [...] But like some people approaching the end of their eighth decade, he is not open to correction. “Trump is never wrong,” he said recently in Wisconsin. “I am never, ever wrong.”

https://x.com/LarrySabato/status/1842904638988648879