Trump’s Aides Spill the Beans: He's Tired of the Job and Doesn’t Want to Campaign

Donald Trump’s own team is now admitting out loud what a lot of people already suspected: the president has basically checked out of the parts of the job that don’t revolve around him.

Anonymous aides told CNN that Trump will eventually hit the road to fire up MAGA voters ahead of the midterms, but don’t expect him to enjoy a second of it if the trips are about propping up other Republicans.

“He loves to travel, but he hates to travel,” one aide said. They added, “Once he’s traveling, he’s like: ‘Why am I doing this? I want to be doing other things.’”

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Those “other things,” according to the report, include talking about his construction projects, the so-called Arc de Trump, the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, and his White House ballroom, rather than the affordability crisis that is actually crushing voters. Gas prices and the cost of living are dragging his approval numbers down, and Republican lawmakers are getting nervous that their standard-bearer has become a liability thanks to the war in Iran and his apparent indifference to the economic pain.

Trump finally green-lit using millions from his personal PAC to help vulnerable GOP candidates, after months of hesitation. One adviser spelled out the obvious: “Without a doubt, we’ve got to make sure we get some of these voters who show up for Donald Trump in presidential elections to show up for these congressionals.”

The president, meanwhile, is already preparing his excuse if the party gets shellacked in November. He told Punchbowl News he won’t take any of the blame.

“The question is, will they vote?” he said, before supplying his own answer: “They’re angry at Republicans, but they’re not angry at me.”

That attitude showed up again on Friday in Long Island, where Trump was supposed to be boosting candidates including his gubernatorial pick Bruce Blakeman. Instead he kept circling back to the “young, beautiful girls” he sees at the White House and appeared to forget the name of Saritha Komatireddy, the Republican attorney general candidate he has endorsed, referring to her as the woman he had “just met.”

White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles has reportedly ordered staff to keep yanking him back to the affordability message voters care about. It doesn’t seem to be sticking.