Journalist Reports There's 'Disgust' About Trump Within His Own Campaign
Tim Alberta, a staff writer at The Atlantic, said Monday that some of Donald Trump 's own staffers feel "resentment" and "disgust" toward the GOP presidential nominee and are pessimistic about his prospects amid the chaotic way he's ended the race.
"As of a few weeks ago, people close to him were still pretty bullish on his prospects," Alberta said on CNN Monday night . "I'm not sure that's the case anymore. I think that there is a real fear that the bottom has started to fall out here at the worst possible moment, and that they are closing in about as weak a fashion as you possibly could."
Alberta summed it up in a social media post Monday : "Hard to overstate how terrible morale is inside of this campaign — and how much anger/resentment is felt toward the candidate."
In a separate interview with MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace, Alberta reported that, for months, he has spoken to senior Trump campaign aides who have seemed to feel uneasy about the former president — who has grown increasingly hateful, erratic and unhinged in the final stretch of the race.
He cited one specific conversation he said he had with a Trump campaign staffer recently, around the time John Kelly said he believes his onetime boss to be a fascist . Kelly, Trump's former chief of staff, also said the ex-president had praised Adolf Hitler to him multiple times.
The campaign staffer said, "I just don't know, you know, how much longer I can put up with this," according to Alberta.
"There is a fatigue and exhaustion, and at times, I think, it would be accurate to say, a disgust, for some of these people that has set in," Alberta added.
He also recalled a conversation in which a "pretty high-ranking Trump person" admitted there was a very small part of them that hopes he loses.
"I will probably go to my death bed still thinking about that conversation," Alberta said.
"Even among the people who have poured their blood, sweat and tears into trying to elect this man for the last couple of years, Nicolle, they know that ... something is off here."
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Over the weekend, Alberta published a feature in The Atlantic about the Trump campaign's recent weeks, shedding insight on its "ruthless, restless final days."
He is the author of the 2019 book "American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump."
