Whenever some bad news comes out that might harm him, Trump says something outrageous to distract people. He has done this so often that the cause-effect relationship is easy to spot.
Take yesterday. There was devastating news that the GDP had shrunk at a whopping annualized rate of 32.9% in the second quarter of the year. That is a devastating number and was the worst loss since the second world war. This means that Trump’s hope that the economy will recover soon despite his incompetence, and that he can ride the wave of a recovery to win re-election, is now is serious doubt. The third-quarter report will be released just a week or so before the election on November 3rd but that will be too late to change the country’s mood.
So what does he do? He throws out the idea that he might postpone the election. This is just nonsense. He does not have the power to set the election date. Only Congress can do that but Trump knows that many reporters and analysts will chase after that squirrel and the terrible GDP news will lose some of the spotlight.
But no amount of smoke and mirrors can hide the reality that many people are hurting and there is no sign of things getting better any time soon.
Meanwhile, despite this bad news and the large numbers of people who have lost their jobs, health insurance, and their homes, the stock market keeps chugging along as if everything is just fine in the economy.