Chuck Todd: Trump May Be Getting His 2016 ‘Swagger’ Back as ‘Outside Disrupter’

Todd: “I don’t mean to simplify this, but you know, Donald Trump’s rhetoric even and even his sort of swagger looks more like 2016 and the campaign you covered so closely, Katy, than he looked in 2020. And in fact, I was just discussing this with somebody we all know on this call, on this — on this program. I’m going to leave his name out of it because he didn’t know I was going to quote him just now, but he even noted, we were talking about this idea that when Trump’s losing, the worst version of Trump shows up. And when Trump’s winning, or he thinks he’s ahead, he’s actually a different person, a different candidate. Maybe just — I think Vaughn could probably speak to this now, the Donald Trump at Detroit and those events he did, he was oddly loose. He was trying to be funny and all of this, where from about 2017 to 2022 we had — and even 2023 through the primaries, it’s been nothing but angry grievance Trump, right? Angry, angry, angry. It’s interesting, if he somehow drops the grievance, he could end up looking more like that 2016 candidate —“

Tur: “Maybe.”

Todd: “— where he’s the outside disrupter.”

Tur: “But it’s hard to imagine him dropping the grievance, as you know, again, he’s going to be sentenced in a few weeks here in Manhattan. There’s all, you know, presidential immunity decisions coming out with the Supreme Court. There are reasons to continue on the grievance trail. And this whole campaign, it seems to be less for him about policy and more about what they’re doing to me is what they want to do to you. My grievances are your grievances.”