Transcript

(electronic zapping)

Sometimes Donald Trump is so disconnected from reality

that his hallucinations go all the way around the universe

and on the way back accidentally collide with reality

from the other direction.

We may be faced with exactly that scenario

in Sunday night's second debate.

By all accounts, Trump thinks he won the first debate,

and won it handily.

He was still re-litigating the outcome on Twitter

nearly five full days after he walked off the stage

at Hofstra still citing the same meaningless

American Idol style online votes.

Still blaming the media spin, even though he had gone to

the spin room for the expressed purpose

of spinning the media.

Also by all accounts, those around Trump know he actually

Titanic-ed.

If they held some hopes of having nearly a minor defeat

to deal with, those have been dispensed with as this week

has worn on, by widening real poll numbers,

especially in battleground states like Pennsylvania.

Thus, Trump thinks he goes onto the state in St. Louis

Sunday night, needing to land just one more dramatic,

historic punch to the metaphorical gut, to finish

Hillary Clinton for good.

While his handlers think he goes onto the stage in St. Louis

Sunday night, needing to land a dramatic historic punch

to the metaphorical gut or Hillary Clinton will have

finished him for good.

This means that both the voices around Trump,

and the voices in his head are telling him not to hold back.

Not to look reasonable, not to try to undo the impact

of his self defenestration at Hofstra.

In other words, not to do the only things he could do

to convince that middle swatch of voters that he is not

as unlikable, not as unstable, not as thin skinned,

not as boastful, not as crazy, as he appeared.

Oops!

If we saw angry Trump in the first debate,

I think we can expect very angry Trump in the second one.

And we already have a few hints as to what he's angry about.

He dropped one in Manheim, Pennsylvania, last Saturday,

just as his tax avoidance story was about to hit

The New York Times website.

Having already talked about Hillary Clinton's marriage,

and her reaction to the women who threatened it,

he now moved on to what is political science fiction,

even among the very large and long established

crowd of people driven crazy by the very fact that there are

Clintons.

I don't even think she's loyal to Bill, you want to

know the truth.

And really folks, really, why should she be, right?

This was new ground alleging some kind of infidelity

on her part.

It became an applause line.

Trump may use it at the debate or he may even go further,

considering that bizarre high that he gets

when he gets rolling, really gets him high.

I would need favorable odds to actually predict this

but I would not be surprised if he decided to make up

specifics about who he thinks she was disloyal to Bill with.

We got another hint Tuesday about anger

in Prescott Valley, Arizona.

On the subject of his tax avoidance, Trump simply refuses

to stop digging.

This one is as wild and illogical as anything Trump

has yet said.

But remember, he has spent the week testing the waters

to find that one topic that he thinks will summarily

win him the presidency on Sunday night.

Now after years of failure she complains about how I've

used tax laws of this country to my benefit.

Then I ask a simple question:

Why didn't she ever try to change those laws

so I couldn't use them?

Ahh,

it's the old line, I told you I'd shoot,

why didn't you believe me?

But it's elevated to a rationalization of the one thing

that has done the most damage to Trump's campaign.

The premise, oversimplification though it may be,

that he hasn't paid any taxes since 1995.

How to get out of it?

Make it her fault.

I didn't want to write $916 million in losses.

The laws she didn't change forced me into it.

Nevermind that Clinton didn't get into the Senate

until six years after Trump pulled whatever he pulled.

And he still hasn't denied a word

of The New York Times report nor any of the inferences

drawn from it.

It's her fault, he broke the moral equivalent of the law.

Not his fault since he's the law and order candidate!

In the last week Trump has also veered into some

borderline hallucinations.

And remember he thinks he is the victim in the

Alicia Machado story.

That she should have been more grateful to him.

And back in Arizona he had a doozie of a far more

serious dream.

We're in a nation divided with race riots I the street.

You look at what's going on, race riots in the street.

Sure, race riots.

Hey Trumpy-mac-Trump-face?

You keep using those words, I do not think they mean

what you think they mean.

Forecasting Sunday we also have a few hints on how

the moderators Martha Raddatz and Anderson Cooper

might behave.

Firstly they won't have to behave all that much.

This is a town hall format.

Half the questions will come from the audience

so you know what that means.

God help us.

But as The Washington Post noted,

the day after the first debate, my old friend Martha

who I worked with in local news in Boston 32 years ago,

went on Good Morning America and she was astonished

that Trump had referenced never striking first with

nuclear weapons but then finished the same deal

by insisting he would never take any options

off the table.

She said, I think all of us at the table last night

were saying, 'He said what?' We had no idea what he was

talking about in the end, whether he wanted first use

or whether he didn't want any first use. Maybe that

next debate. We'll see.

So, that's one of the questions?

As to style, the post notes the same day Cooper praised

Phil Donahue for his hands off approach that he used

in the Democratic primary debate, 1992.

He said, I think there is a value in stepping back.

You don't want it to be about you. You want it to be

a discussion about the two, and if one is interrupting

the other, that tells the audience something,

and people can make up their own minds about what exactly

that means.

So we may need to be sending out a search party

for Anderson Cooper on Sunday night.

You may have noticed that I have not mentioned

in this forecast, what Hillary Clinton might do.

And that is simply because there is nothing for her

to do, but to continue to treat Donald Trump

the way she did in the first debate.

As a guy who sounds like he just escaped from somewhere.

Don't overreact, don't get angry, don't let him

get away with anything.

Keep that same smile on your face like an indulgent parent

who caught her seven year old with his hand

in the cookie jar and has the audio recorded on her phone,

plus the video tape, satellite imaging, and 17 depositions.

And is just waiting for his temper tantrum to play out.

One last reminder by way of preview.

Whatever Trump does Sunday night, remember he thinks

he's winning and needs just one more good one

to clinch it.

And as much as the Republican hierarchy tries to

disown him, he is the essence of their party

in one respect at least.

When a crazy ass argument of theirs does not work,

politicizing terrorism, shoving patriotism down

peoples throats, rescinding women's rights,

none of them ever think, Hey, that didn't work,

drop it.

They just repeat it and they say it louder!

In short, Trump is gonna call Hillary a new

name of some kind that he thinks will disqualify her,

and it won't, it will disqualify him.

To paraphrase Boris Badenov from Rocky and Bullwinkle,

I send in package to lady which is really bomb.

Door gets locked, she can't get out.

Who gets blown up?

Me!

That's the closer, I'm Keith Olbermann,

watch this space.