In a column for the Daily Beast, longtime conservative Matt Lewis claimed that Donald Trump’s plan to abandon the daily press conferences where ostensibly he was to update the public on new information on the COVID-19 pandemic, is a sign that he knows they have been a failure for him as he scrambles to stop his slide in the polls.

As Lewis notes, for once Trump is getting something right.

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Following Thursday press conference where the president suggested using disinfectants internally to cure coronavirus victims, Friday’s appearance was brief with the president taking no questions and fleeing the press after Vice President Mike Pence spoke.

“In a press briefing that ended quicker than a lot of Mike Tyson fights, it was Donald Trump who ended up on the mat Friday night,” Lewis wrote. “Right after he shuffled off the stage Friday night without taking a single question, the news broke that he was no longer going to be entertaining America on a nightly basis.”

Calling it “a fitting end to one of the most bizarre weeks in the most bizarre periods in American history,” Lewis went on to write, “Friday’s abrupt departure, coupled with those reports that we may have seen our last daily coronavirus briefing, constitutes a rare, if tacit, admission of failure. Coronavirus is a serious problem, and Trump simply can’t talk his way out of this one.”

“It has been said that Trump’s superpower is that he has no shame. He doesn’t get embarrassed, primarily because he isn’t self-aware enough to realize he should,” Lewis continued. “Trump normally prevaricates with abandon, attempting to gaslight us into believing we’re the ones with the problem. But on this occasion, he seemed self-aware. Finally, Trump seemed to realize that he was naked.”

“It takes a lot for a man this delusional to come to terms with reality. And while I’m not delusional enough to think he is maturing, or that avoiding the media will last (he craves attention too much for that), Trump might finally be getting scared,” he added. “Look at the polls. He could very well lose his re-election to Joe Biden. I think he finally realizes that.”

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“For a man who never apologizes or admits the smallest defeat, walking out without taking a single question—the first time he’s ever done that in a coronavirus briefing—suggests he just couldn’t handle another interrogation,” he concluded.

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