‘This Is Not a Juggernaut Candidate!’ Eugene Robinson Makes the Case That Trump Is Still Beatable in November

Former President Donald Trump formally accepted his party’s nomination on the final night of the Republican National Convention in a rambling, meandering speech that lasted over an hour and a half. Some commentators said this proved Trump was still the same old Trump despite promises to tone down his rhetoric — and The Washington Post ‘s Eugene Robinson said it proved Democrats could still beat Trump in November.

On MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Friday, Robinson spoke with co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski about Trump’s first address after the assassination attempt on Saturday. While the news for Democrats had been in a downward spiral since the presidential debate on June 27, Robinson said Trump’s mixed reviews pointed to a candidate who had no guarantees:

I think those two, the two stories that that we’ve been talking about this morning, former President Trump’s speech and President [ Joe Biden’s ] fate as a candidate are linked tonight. And I think in a way, that speech last night will kind of intensify this angst and debate in the Democratic Party because I think a lot of Democrats will, you know, who watched that speech… I watched all 93 minutes of it. I’m a little sleepy this morning, I stayed up to watch the whole thing.

And, you know, that thought that everybody had — this guy can be beaten! This is not a juggernaut candidate. This is not, you know, [ Muhammed Ali ] in his prime or anything. This this guy can be beaten! When he got to Hannibal Lecter and all of that it was like, this is not really even the same old Donald Trump. This is a Donald Trump who is more meandering, who is less focused, who is less able to stay on a theme , who had a layup to make last night and couldn’t, and flubbed the layup. I mean, he didn’t make it. All he had to do is come and say some kind of unifying things and accept the nomination and let the balloons drop. That’s all he had to do. And he couldn’t do that.

So I think, you know, a lot in the party are going to say “If only we have a younger, more vigorous candidate, I mean, then we can beat this guy.” And I think, conversely, there could be the reaction in Biden world, in President Biden’s inner circle, that “ we can beat this guy. We can still beat this guy,” because he sees not this towering, unbeatable figure that the Republicans seem to portray him as.

Watch the video above via MSNBC.