If it seems as if Donald Trump has canceled a surprising number of events, interviews and appearances lately, it’s not your imagination. Indeed, as Politico reported, the list keeps growing.
Donald Trump was scheduled to appear at a virtual town hall with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) today at 2 p.m. — but it was canceled, with the organizers citing “changes in Trump’s schedule.” … The Make America Healthy Again town hall, which organizers planned to live stream on X, was meant to highlight Kennedy’s health agenda and contributions to the Trump campaign. (The former independent candidate dropped his bid in August and endorsed Trump.)
In fairness, it’d be an overstatement to suggest that the former Republican president is somehow hiding. He isn’t. The GOP nominee continues to make a variety of public appearances, usually in settings in which he doesn’t have to worry about adversarial questions.
But he’s made a surprising number of cancellations, too:
- Trump agreed to appear on CBS’s “60 Minutes” before canceling.
- He agreed to appear on CNBC before canceling.
- He reportedly planned to sit down for an interview with the NBC affiliate in Philadelphia before canceling.
- He was reportedly in conversations for weeks with The Shade Room about a sit-down interview before withdrawing.
- His campaign said he’d debate Kamala Harris more than once, but he soon after scrapped those plans, too.
It’s also worth noting that Trump was supposed to participate in an event in Georgia with the National Rifle Association, but it too was canceled. The right-wing group explained that the change was the result of “campaign scheduling changes.”
As for the possible explanations for these many cancelations, Politico reported that Trump’s team told one outlet that the candidate’s schedule has been so busy that it’s led to “exhaustion.”
Making matters a bit worse, the 78-year-old Republican appeared to be falling asleep — more than once — during some recent events.
This has not gone unnoticed by the rival campaign. Vice President Harris: I've been hearing reports that Trump’s team is saying he's suffering from exhaustion. That's apparently the excuse for why he's not doing interviews. Being President is probably one of the hardest jobs in the world. We really do need to ask, if he's… pic.twitter.com/GzIhRsQh5J “Being president of the United States is probably one of the hardest jobs in the world,” Harris told reporters late last week, after referencing the Politico report. “And so, we really do need to ask if he’s exhausted being on the campaign trail, is he fit to do the job?” Presumably, Trump could push back against such questions by releasing his medical records, but to date, he’s refused to do so for reasons he has not explained.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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