Report: Trump’s Campaign Manager Thinks He’ll Lose

Jonathan Swan reports at Axios:

Three senior Trump advisers who recently talked to campaign manager Bill Stepien walked away believing he thinks they will lose. The big picture: The Trump campaign is filled with internal blaming and pre-spinning of a potential loss, accelerating a dire mood that’s driven by a daily barrage of bleak headlines, campaign and White House officials tell me. “A lot of this is the president himself,” one adviser said. “You can’t heal a patient who doesn’t want to take the diagnosis.”

In other private conversations, described by multiple sources, Stepien can seem darkly pessimistic. He likens the campaign to an airplane flying through turbulence, saying: “It’s our job to safely land the plane.” Stepien pushed back strongly on that, telling me on Friday morning: “With each day closer to November 3, our campaign data presents a clear pathway to 270 for the President that provides me more confidence than ever in President Trump’s re-election.”