Jacob Heilbrunn

Donald Trump’s tweet mooting an election delay isn’t a sign of strength but weakness. Maybe he’ll say it was just a joke. Maybe it was intended to distract from the bad economic news. Maybe he’s trying to inure the public to the idea of a postponement. Maybe he’s preparing for his post-presidency with a farrago of excuses and complaints and lies. Or maybe Trump is simply flailing, a prospective loser who is already losing it.His erstwhile champion Herman Cain, who denounced the idea of wearing a mask, has just died at 74 from coronavirus complications. His national security adviser has the virus. So does Rep. Louie Gohmert, who refused to wear a mask. Trump’s incessant attempts to depict the pandemic as a hoax have turned out be the palpable fraud.

Is the Death Star about to implode? Trump campaign manager (at least at this writing) Brad Parscale bragged some weeks back that he was about to pull the big guns out to demolish the Biden campaign — a 'juggernaut campaign (Death Star)'. It was a weird comparison considering the Death Star goes down for the count in two Star Wars movies. But then again, Parscale is also the guy who stated that millions were pining to show up at Trump’s ill-fated rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Since then, Trump canceled another rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, claiming that bad weather had forced his hand. Not much is going well for Trump, who seems about as stable as Emperor Palpatine these days.

Who knew that the most prominent NeverTrumper would be a member of the Trump family? Mary Trump is Donald's niece and bears the same name as his mother. She has a PhD in clinical psychology and is now the author of a book called Too Much and Never Enough, an unsparing look at her uncle that does not shrink, as it were, from putting him on the couch. The Amazon bestseller has spun up the president; he is getting his minions to denounce it and is promoting cancel culture by suing to prevent it from being read by the masses. White House spokesman Kayleigh McEnany noted that she had not seen it but went on to declare that Mary’s maiden effort was a 'book of falsehoods' brimming with 'absurd allegations'.

It’s starting to look as though the question isn’t who Donald Trump asked to assist him in his 2020 bid but who he didn’t. Former national security adviser John Bolton reports in his forthcoming 592-page memoir, The Room Where It Happened, that Trump seems to have asked Chinese President Xi Xinping to lend him a hand during a summit dinner last year. Add that to the 'favor' he asked for from Ukraine and you have a portrait of a President who was desperate for help wherever and whenever he could find it. Maybe Trump had it right: if his current prospects are anything to go by he could definitely use a lift from abroad. Was this his personal version of what international law calls 'anticipatory self-defense?

Donald Trump needs to ramp it up. After he almost bobbled a glass of water and carefully descended a ramp at West Point, Trump tried to go on the attack against his detractors, claiming that his performance was fine and dandy. But Trump, a master of stagecraft for much of his presidency, is increasingly losing the optics battle, particularly as he engages with the military brass.Or so goes the conventional wisdom. But what Trump’s critics are overlooking is that this is just the first stage in his struggle to corral the recalcitrant military leadership. Like his hero Douglas MacArthur, Trump is likely vowing, ‘I shall return!’ He knows that the military rank and file largely support him. Trump’s showered largesse on the troops and his bully-boy act goes over well.

Don’t cross Donald Trump. Trump originally ran for the presidency because Barack Obama mocked him at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in 2011. He has devoted himself to tearing up every accomplishment, every treaty that Obama signed. Yesterday he was mocked for the revelation that he was conducted into the White House bunker by the Secret Service. Now he has had his revenge. Speaking in the Rose Garden today, Trump declared, 'If a city or state refuses to take the actions necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for there.' He indicated that he is prepared to invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act to quash to the protests.This isn’t rodomontade.

By George! After numerous attempts to provoke President Trump, George Conway, husband of Kellyanne, managed to elicit a series of tweets denouncing him as, among other things, 'Moonface'. In lavishing this attention on Conway, Trump has done him an enormous favor, creating a controversy and publicity where there was none.This fresh objurgatory feat from Trump was triggered by a new advertisement sponsored by the Lincoln Project, a consortium formed by NeverTrumpers to help torpedo his reelection bid, that declared it is 'Mourning in America', a riff on the 'Morning in America' ad that ran in 1984 when Ronald Reagan crushed former Vice President Walter Mondale.

President Trump sent out a number of tweets today demanding liberation, but he probably wasn’t thinking of his old fixer Michael Cohen. Cohen, who squealed on Donald Trump before Congress, went to jail for a variety of financial and campaign finance crimes. Thanks to the coronavirus, his own problem is largely fixed. He’s getting an early reprieve from his three-year jail sentence at a medium-security prison in Otisville, New York and headed for home confinement. Another member of Trump’s rogues gallery, Paul Manafort, has asked to be released from Loretto federal prison in Pennsylvania because of the pandemic, but there’s no word yet whether his request will be granted. Unlike Cohen, Manafort remained unflinching.

Is the Trump White House fired up? Not exactly. White House spokesman Hogan Gidley tried to douse the speculation that Anthony S. Fauci is about to be sacked for his incautious remarks on CNN’s State of the Union about the merits of an earlier shutdown: 'This media chatter is ridiculous. Dr Fauci has been and remains a trusted adviser to President Trump.'The problem is that the White House has issued similarly indignant statements in the past, only to watch Trump’s wrath turn pustular on Twitter. Any future transgressions are not likely to be forgiven. For now, Trump, who prevented Fauci from responding to a question about hydroxycholoroquine a week ago at a news conference, has sent a warning shot in Fauci’s direction.

Grin and bear it. Teddy bears are popping up across America in living room windows as families seek to entertain children out for a stroll who are supposed to go on a bear hunt. There’s even a central database, citybearhunt.com, where you can enter your address to assist in the search for the ursine creatures. If Donald Trump wants to project a cuddlier image, he might consider placing one in the Oval Office window.Judging by Trump’s latest moves, though, he is hardly in an emollient mood. Rather, he’s embarked upon his own safari into the wilderness of the deep state. Trump is claiming fresh pelts by the day.

Joe Biden keeps getting more unconventional. It started when he delivered short speeches and one-word answers like 'yes' or 'no'. Now he and the Democrats are becoming even friskier, declaring that they want to push off their grand jamboree, the big enchilada, the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee to August, a week before Trump holds his own shindig in Florida. Smart move on a number of fronts. For one thing, the original mid-July date simply allowed too much time to elapse between the Democratic and Republican conventions. Trump would have pummeled Biden relentlessly during those weeks. A let-down after Milwaukee would have been inevitable. Trump would have reveled in the build-up to his own convention.

It’s time to take stock of Congress. Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler’s new financial disclosures indicate that in recent months she hastily divested herself of even more stocks than was previously apparent. A riveting new report from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has the goods: it indicates that even as Loeffler — reputed to be worth about $500 million together with her husband Jeff Sprecher who, incidentally, is the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange — was issuing panegyrics to Trump for his visionary leadership, she was dumping millions, including $18.7 of Intercontinental Exchange stock and investments in T.J. Maxx and Lululemon, in late February and early March. She also invested in a company producing coronavirus protective wear.

Will the stimulus stimulate? Donald Trump, who seems to have had nothing to do with the actual formation of the $2 trillion bill, is exhorting Congress to pass it Wednesday. It contains all kinds of bennies for the Democratic party, including an obscure provision that enables over-the-counter drug reform. But the real shift is that the GOP is now embracing big government — and it’s likely to continue in the form of further stimulus bills.The prospect of over a million workers hitting the unemployment line in March helps to concentrate the mind. And so, Republicans, who used to denounce helicopter money, are showering it on the average American, a nifty direct cash payment of $1,200. Then there is unemployment insurance. It’s being prolonged by 13 weeks.

Well, well, well. There was former White House press secretary Sean Spicer at today’s press conference in a new incarnation as Newsmax reporter. Looking much better tailored than when he was press secretary — Trump was apparently livid about his schlumpy appearance back then and a GoFundMe campaign was launched to buy him fresh habiliments — Spicer was looking quite the dandy, or about as dandyish as he can get: checked jacket, pocket square, shirt and tie all of which appeared to be various hues of purple. For the most part, Spicer’s posture towards Trump remained unchanged, which is to say that he was as cringing as ever. 'Mr President, two questions if you’ll indulge me,' he said. Trump indulged.

Dosvedanya, Bernie. The honeymoon with the Democratic primary has come to as decisive an end as his old romance with the Soviet Union. 2016 is not 2020. The bottom line: After four years of Donald Trump, Democrats have sobered up. There will be no sipping of the socialist moonshine that Sanders was purveying. He was able to dispense small batch samples but no more — even in Michigan, the site of his former triumph over Hillary Clinton. This time, voters didn’t even really bother to examine his wares. Rather, they quite sensibly flocked to Joe Biden who rolled up victory margins that should scare the daylights out of Donald Trump.