Donald Trump Feels Election 'Slipping Away': Former Staffer

 

Sarah Matthews, a former White House staffer, has expressed her belief that Donald Trump is "desperate" as he senses the election "slipping away" from him.

Matthews, who served as Trump's deputy White House press secretary from June 2020 to January 2021, shared her thoughts on Trump's current state of mind during an interview on MSNBC. The discussion centered on one of Trump's posts on Truth Social, in which he accused Vice President Kamala Harris of using AI-generated images to inflate the size of the crowds at one of her campaign rallies.

"I think he feels this election slipping away from him, and that's why we're seeing him spiral and latch onto these conspiracy theories," Matthews said. She referred specifically to the AI-generated crowd claim, noting that such allegations can be easily disproven.

She continued, "It's truly insanity; there will be people who believe it simply because he's pushing it. This is what happens when he gets desperate—he resorts to conspiracy theories."

Matthews also criticized Trump's recent rhetoric, including comments where he appeared to question Harris' racial identity. Harris responded by calling Trump "disrespectful" after he claimed he "didn't know she was Black." Trump made these remarks during an appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists.

Matthews remarked, "These are not winning campaign messages. But when he feels under attack, he uses these lines of defense that make little sense for a campaign. I can assure you that his campaign team is urging him to focus on policy—issues like the economy and immigration, things that actually matter to voters. None of the topics he's discussing at rallies or on Truth Social are top concerns for most voters."

In response to Matthews' comments, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung dismissed her as irrelevant, saying, "Nobody knows who the hell Sarah Matthews is. She wasn’t the press secretary, just a lowly staffer who has no idea what she's talking about."

The controversy began when Trump accused Harris of manipulating images from a rally at Detroit Metropolitan Airport on August 7. Social media posts showed a large crowd, with an estimated 15,000 attendees according to local outlet MLive. However, Trump shared a post claiming the Harris campaign had doctored the photo, pointing out that the crowd's reflection wasn't visible on the plane in front of them.

Trump wrote, "Has anyone noticed that Kamala CHEATED at the airport? There was nobody at the plane, and she 'A.I.'d' it to show a massive 'crowd' of so-called followers, BUT THEY DIDN'T EXIST! A maintenance worker at the airport exposed the fake crowd picture—there was nobody there, later confirmed by the reflection on the Vice Presidential Plane. She's a CHEATER. She had NOBODY waiting, and the 'crowd' looked like 10,000 people! This is how Democrats win elections, by CHEATING—And they're even worse at the Ballot Box. She should be disqualified because creating a fake image is ELECTION INTERFERENCE. Anyone who does that will cheat at ANYTHING!"

The BBC investigated the allegation, analyzing the metadata of the original image provided by the Harris campaign. Their assessment confirmed that the photo was taken with an iPhone 12 Pro Max on August 7 at 18:28 local time.