Last week was probably a stressful one for Donald Trump’s campaign staffers. On Tuesday, the Republican candidate was already under fire for hinting that “second amendment people” should do something to prevent Hillary Clinton from appointing Supreme Court justices if she’s elected, and on Wednesday he was ridiculed for suggesting that president Barack Obama was “the founder of ISIS” along with Hillary Clinton. The New York Times chimed in with a deep dive “inside the failing mission to tame Donald Trump’s tongue”—itself provoking unrestrained social media ire from the candidate. And prominent Republicans spent the weekend distancing themselves from Trump on morning talk shows.
Of course for the comedian John Oliver, the week was an embarrassment of riches, and he gleefully took on the job of mocking Trump’s missteps at the beginning of Sunday’s Last Week Tonight show in HBO. (Clinton’s week wasn’t so great either, Oliver pointed out, but the release of her tax returns and leaked emails were “eclipsed by the imploding star that is Donald Trump.”)
There’s no telling just how much farther off the rails Trump’s campaign can go, but the candidate’s sensitivity to criticism from the media is clearly becoming a liability for the campaign (and a bullseye for those looking for a reaction). As Trump trails Clinton in polling, the Wall Street Journal editorial board and other conservative voices have even gone so far as to suggest he should drop out of the race.
Among liberals and Clinton supporters, there’s a certain amount of schadenfreude in watching from the sidelines: