In Reply to: Thursday: you’re 80% done but already checked out* posted by mh on August 27, 2026 at 09:08:09
Republican candidates, already facing an uphill battle because of President Donald Trump's unpopularity, are about to face new headwinds due to his self-absorption.
According to MS NOW's Zeeshan Aleem, a report from The Atlantic that Trump plans to spend millions of his hoarded MAGA dollars on an ad campaign promoting his record is the last thing GOP candidates need.
In a recent White House strategy meeting, Trump reportedly decided that as Election Day approaches, he would spend "hundreds of millions of dollars" promoting himself. The strategy serves as yet another example of how Trump's "self-adulation" frequently becomes the source of his biggest strategic mistakes.
According to The Atlantic, citing three people familiar with the meeting, Trump gathered his political advisers to determine how to spend the $400 million in funds available to his super political action committee, MAGA Inc. He reportedly settled on trying to "lean into the Democratic strategy of focusing on himself" and ordered "a series of television advertisements about his own record that will serve as a backdrop to the hundreds of individual House and Senate contests."
The report notes that Trump apparently wants ad makers to "mine his own on-camera statements" for these ads, focusing on his tax breaks, the stock market's rise and his failed war on fentanyl, among other things.