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Donald Trump, Desert Diamond Arena, Arizona
Former President Donald Trump speaking at an Arizona for Trump rally at Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, AZ on August 23, 2024. Photo credit: Gage Skidmore / Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED)

Subtle as ever, Donald Trump is using sophisticated psychological tricks to get CNN's Dana Bash to do her job.

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Donald Trump is about as easy to manipulate as a toddler. Post a couple of things online about Kamala Harris attracting larger crowds, and he will spend all day explaining why images of her rallies are either fake or, in reality, those empty seats at his events are not actually empty.

In his Navigating the Insanity columns, Klaus Marre provides the kind of hard-hitting, thought-provoking, and often funny analysis you won’t find anywhere else. 

That’s just one example of dozens. 

Call him strange, and he’ll say the most bizarre things to prove that he is not a major weirdo. 

And, because Trump is not terribly bright, he seems to think that this kind of “psychology” will also work on others. 

On Thursday, for example, he is trying to manipulate CNN’s Dana Bash to be especially tough on Harris and her running mate Tim Walz when she interviews the two on her network.

Mind you, he has praised Bash as being fair, so there is really no reason to believe that she won’t conduct a professional interview.

But that’s not enough for the former president. 

He hopes that Bash can give him an edge if she really sticks it to the Democrats… and he isn’t being subtle about it. 

“Dana Bash of CNN has a chance at greatness today,” he wrote in a Truth Social post. 

Wow, a chance at greatness??? That sounds awesome. 

Trump’s brilliant strategy is the former president’s equivalent of telling a child that Santa would be very proud of her if she finished her broccoli. 

And, just in case Bash didn’t get this incredibly understated hint, the former president made sure to repeat it. 

He remarked how “cool [it] would be for Dana and CNN” if the interviewer were to expose the vice president as “totally inept and ill-suited.” 

That would be soooo cool. 

At this point a well-trained poodle would understand what Trump hopes will happen. 

However, that’s still insufficient for the former president, which is why he delicately tried to prompt Bash into doing his bidding.  

“This is a chance for Dana Bash to reach REAL stardom, while at the same time doing a great service to our now failing Country,” he wrote. 

That does sound nice. 

Maybe, if Trump sweetens the deal with some of his new NFT trading cards, he will even get to submit his own questions.

But, if the former president really wants to be adored, he’d do his own interviews with non-biased news outlets… instead of with the fanboys at Fox News, kooks like Dr. Phil, or nationalists like Elon Musk.

If he did that, everybody would say that Trump is the bravest and best ever.


In his Navigating the Insanity columns, Klaus Marre provides the kind of hard-hitting, thought-provoking, and often funny analysis you won’t find anywhere else. 

Author

  • Klaus Marre

    Klaus Marre is a senior editor for Politics and director of the Mentor Apprentice Program at WhoWhatWhy. Follow him on Twitter @KlausMarre.

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