Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is a man who cannot admit fault or allow others to fault him under any circumstances.
Some Trump staffers and surrogates have conceded that the first presidential debate did not go well, but Trump reportedly scolded staffers and surrogates during a conference call yesterday, telling them to shut up about his embarrassing faceplant.
In a conference call with surrogates Wednesday afternoon, Trump aides made clear the Republican nominee is upset that his allies publicly acknowledged they pushed him to change his preparation and tactics before his next bout with Hillary Clinton. And he wants them to stop it immediately. [...]
Trump wants his supporters to make an energetic defense of his performance and refuse to concede that he didn't nail it.
The implications of this are quite obvious.
Trump is not going to prepare for the next debate in any meaningful way because he does not personally believe he's done anything wrong. The idea of preparation itself is foreign to Trump because he cannot be coached. He cannot be prepared. No one can talk down to or instruct Trump. Trump believes he was born to win.
Rather than reconsider his own approach, Trump has concocted a series of conspiracy theories to explain his own failure. Trump claims his microphone was rigged to malfunction. He says debate moderator Lester Holt is a secret Democrat who didn't ask fair questions.
This man sitting in the oval office should scare the shit out of everyone. Trump doesn't even listen to his own hand-selected advisers.