More speculation on whether Donald Trump really wants the job of President or just the title.

Donald Trump doesn't want the job of President. He wants to win the election, but he doesn't want the actual job and the actual work that comes with it. We've talked about this before and it's starting to look closer to the truth.

Back in April, I wrote a post titled, "Donald Trump Is Beginning His Exit Strategy," that appeared on Liberals Unite and on The Huffington Post. Tony Trupiano and I have talked about this very theory on the T&Z Talk podcast numerous times.

In the post, I wrote, "Donald Trump does not want to be president. In fact, he never wanted to be president. His entire campaign has been a long con and a ruse to strengthen his brand and feed his ego."

That was back in April when Trump was talking about getting rid of the Geneva Convention, punishing women who have abortions, giving nukes to South Korea and Japan, and dissolving NATO and the United Nations.

He made all of these ludicrous suggestions and promises in the span of a week and because of that I speculated that Trump really didn't want the White House - Ever. He was just doing this to get attention and pump up the Trump brand. Somewhere along the way things got out of hand and he found himself in over his head.

I wrote:

Donald Trump can't just quit. After all, he's Donald Trump. The next logical step would be to take a fall -- possibly losing the nomination by a small margin. But again, if you're Donald Trump you don't lose. If you're Donald Trump and want to get out while still maintaining your brand and your dignity, you play the long game and come out looking like a victim. In a sense, you spin it so that your supporters think you're so accurate in your assessment of the world that it frightens the establishment into shutting you down - you're that powerful.

The theory, still an apparent work in progress, goes a little like this: Donald Trump is a narcissistic, self-absorbed, ego maniac who has no desire to work for a living. He likes to win and hates losers. He actually thinks that everyone who is voting for him is a loser. He will win at all cost. It doesn't matter whether what he says is true, accurate, or completely devoid of reality. Trump is about winning and once he wins, he's done.

On Thursday, in the New York Times Jason Horowitz wrote a piece titled, "Would Donald Trump Quit if He Wins the Election? He Doesn't Rule It Out."

Interesting, ain't it?

Horowitz writes:

Presented in a recent interview with a scenario, floating around the political ether, in which the presumptive Republican nominee proves all the naysayers wrong, beats Hillary Clinton and wins the presidency, only to forgo the office as the ultimate walk-off winner, Mr. Trump flashed a mischievous smile.

That's right, Trump may just quit after he wins.

Horowitz again:

But the notion of the intensely competitive Mr. Trump's being more interested in winning the presidency than serving as president is not exactly a foreign concept to close observers of this presidential race.

According to Horowitz, Stuart Stevens, a senior adviser to Mitt Romney in 2012 who is one of Trump's most vocal critics said, "[Trump] is a con man who is shocked his con hasn't been called" and that he was looking for an emergency exit.

"He has no sense of how to govern," Stevens said. "He can't even put together a campaign."

Of course his campaign, when asked for a comment about whether Trump would walk away from the job once there, denied it. Of course they denied it. Lucy denied that she was going to pull the football away and Charlie Brown still ended up on his back, every time.

It should come as no surprise that the campaign would deny such a notion. It should come as no surprise, but to Horowitz it apparently does. He seems genuinely perplexed that the campaign and Trump wouldn't let him in on the secret. He proceeds to waste another 800 words and internet real estate quoting campaign workers, strategist, college professors and close friends of the ferret headed orange wonder, all of whom must be laughing hysterically that someone is calling to ask, "Hey, you're going to hold that football so I can kick it this time, right?

Trump won't tell, but time will and there's still a pretty good chance that the bombastic candidate who is as surprised as the rest of us that he got this far could one day soon announce, "Nah, never mind."

Hopefully we won't have to wait until November 8th.

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