Former President Trump’s language has shifted to become “much more apocalyptic” than at the start of the election, journalist Maggie Haberman said.
“For whatever reason his language, and I think we can point to a couple of reasons, but his language has gotten much darker, it has gotten much more apocalyptic, and he has gotten far less concerned about what threatening people might mean,” Haberman told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Thursday during an appearance on The Situation Room.
She highlighted the change in Trump’s rhetoric after the Democrats changed their party nominee in July.
“He has been fixated on this, Wolf. He continues to believe that it was unfair the Democrats changed out their nominee,” the New York Times reporter explained. “He believed he had this essentially in the bag against Joe Biden.”
In recent weeks, the former president told supporters that he would deploy the National Guard on the “enemy within” and publicly shared plans to seek retribution on those who he believes cheated him out of a second term in 2020.
He also called Democratic California Rep. Adam Schiff and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi “evil” people, firing back at them for investigations he called “phony.”
“These people — they’re so sick, and they’re so evil. If they would spend their time trying to make America great again, it would be so easy to make this country great,” Trump said. “I’m not threatening anybody. They’re the ones doing the threatening. They do phony investigations.”
Haberman said that over the past few months, Trump’s speaking style has become longer and incoherent.
“I think he’s very angry. I think that a number of things have happened this year,” Haberman added. “I think he was convicted in Manhattan. Then he had an assassination attempt where he was, you know, millimeters away from losing his life. And then he suddenly was facing a new opponent. And I think he is disoriented by all of that.”
