Trump’s Campaign Is Running TV Ads Around Mar-a-Lago to Make Him Happy

Following Vice President Kamala Harris’ historic speech at the Democratic National Convention, Donald Trump spiraled into a public, on-air meltdown that was several weeks in the making. The wave of enthusiasm surrounding Harris is closing the margins in key swing states, outpacing his fundraising, and she’s drawing massive crowds and stellar ratings. Harris is under Trump’s skin.

Instead of focusing his spending and energy on critical sectors and demographics, it seems that Trump’s campaign team is instead throwing resources at reassuring the former president that everything is OK.

According to a Tuesday report from The Bulwark, the Trump campaign will run a series of TV ads in an area encompassing Mar-a-Lago next week. While Palm Beach County leans Democratic, Florida is considered a safe Republican state — and the ads have less to do with drawing voters than coddling one particular resident and the wealthy donors who hang out at the former president’s club.

“This is more about keeping the donors happy than the principal. There’s a lot of donors in Palm Beach,” one campaign insider told The Bulwark. “If spending $50k gets us $5 million, that’s good ROI. If it makes the boss happy, too, then good.”

Keeping the boss happy has been a central issue within the Trump campaign over the last several weeks. On Saturday, The Washington Post reported that aides to the former president were intentionally trying to engineer distractions for an increasingly sullen and angry Trump. Aides testified anonymously to scheduling a series of campaign events in order to keep Trump from retreating to his safe space — the golf course — and letting Harris dominate the post-DNC spotlight.

It doesn’t help that amid the political turmoil of President Joe Biden’s exit from the race, and Kamala Harris’s ascendance to the nomination, Trump survived an assassination attempt that some in his orbit say has left him traumatized.

“He’s been watching that seven-second clip of how close he was to getting shot right in the head — over and over and over again,” one Republican close to the campaign told Vanity Fair last week. Another added that the former president “may actually legit have PTSD.”

As the race tightens and the days until November slide away, self-sabotage — intentional or otherwise — is becoming a central concern for the Trump campaign. While a few ads in Palm Beach may provide a temporary emotional salve for Trump, the former president may be upset when he finds that the Harris campaign is also spending in the area, with an ad focusing on Project 2025.

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