"'My whole life is a bet,' the President of the United States says, resting his forearms on the edge of the Resolute desk in the Oval Office."

"It’s a steamy evening in mid-June, and Trump is facing a set of high-stakes tests around the world. Tensions rising with Iran. Tariffs imposed by India. Protesters flooding the streets of Hong Kong. But Trump is confident, ready to joust. He has invited a group of TIME journalists for an interview, blown past the allotted time and settled in for a wide-ranging discussion. Along the way, he orders a Diet Coke with ice with the push of a small red button set into a wooden box on the desk, and directs an aide to fetch a copy of a hand-delivered birthday letter sent from Kim Jong Un...."

So begins the TIME cover story, "‘My Whole Life Is a Bet.’ Inside President Trump’s Gamble on an Untested Re-Election Strategy."



A few tidbits:

A “progressive” will probably win the primary, Trump predicts, running down the competition with evident relish. Joe Biden “is not the same Biden,” he says, adding later, “Where’s the magic?” Kamala Harris, he notes, “has not surged.” Bernie Sanders is “going in the wrong direction.” Elizabeth Warren’s “doing pretty well,” he allows, but Pete Buttigieg “never” had a chance.

Why? “I just don’t feel it,” Trump says. “Politics is all instinct.”...

“We all have our meetings,” the President says. “But I generally do my own thing.” Campaign staff have been hired to follow Trump’s lead, and the President has made it known that when he tweets a new policy or improvises an attack at a rally, everyone had better be ready to follow along. “He blows the hole and everyone runs into the breach,” says an aide....

[Campaign manager Brad] Parscale, a 6 ft. 8 in. former college basketball recruit, sees his role as Trump’s facilitator. “He’s the real campaign manager, the real finance director, the real director of everything,” Parscale says. “My job is to build a team that’s ready to deal with whatever happens.”

More often than not, the President will go off-script, and a campaign official likens Trump’s knack for riling voters to an old night-fishing trick, shining high-power flashlights into the water to draw quarry to the surface. “The United States is a pond. The President is like the lights,” says the official, who requested anonymity to speak candidly. “If he’s not there, there’s no light, fish are deep, I need a really big lure, it’s expensive.” But, the adviser continues, when Trump lights things up with an issue like immigration or trade, it becomes easy to draw prospective voters out....

Jim Messina, who ran President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign, says.... “The thing they are not doing, which I think is really odd, is doing any sort of general-election messaging... By this point [in the 2012 election], we were in the Midwest trying to tell the economic-recovery story, which you would kind of expect them to be doing right now. Instead every single thing they’re doing is about the base.”...

[C]ranking the outrage machine for so long may make it hard for voters to hear a subtler frequency.... In his position, most incumbents would appeal for four more years by pledging to unite the country. Casting this approach aside makes him “historically unusual” for an incumbent President, says Timothy Naftali, former director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. “He basically wants to beat the house, politically, again.” Whether he wins his bet or not, Trump’s campaign will test the power of outrage. 

So, let's see... people who obviously don't want Trump to win — TIME reporters, Obama's old campaign manager... — are warning him he's got the wrong strategy. He needs to tone it done. Be more subtle. Stop being so Trump-y.