President Donald Trump has grown more erratic this month.
Between his widely criticized pandemic response, his actions in the face of protests against the murder of George Floyd, and rebukes of his presidency from prominent Republicans, the Trump campaign is reportedly doing its best to assure the President that—despite discouraging approval numbers and defectors in the Republican Senate—everything will be okay.
They're using campaign money to do so.
According to FCC disclosures, the Trump campaign has spent around $400 thousand dollars to buy ads in Washington, D.C—even though the District of Columbia hasn't ever gone Republican in the Electoral College.
The goal of the ad spending wasn't to swing D.C. or its surrounding states red. It was to invigorate the President's supporters—and Trump himself—that he wasn't doing as bad a job as everyone thought.
According to the Daily Beast, the Trump campaign said:
"We want members of Congress and our DC-based surrogates to see the ads so they know our strong arguments for President Trump and against Joe Biden."
Sources within the campaign also said it was looking to prove that they were mounting fierce opposition against The Lincoln Project, a political action committee founded by anti-Trump Republicans whose ads have triggered Twitter rants from the President before.
Like many Fox News segments and Congressional hearings, the Trump campaign's ad buys were to assure Trump that he still had the unconditional loyalty of his most devoted followers.
Lincoln Project founders couldn't help but mock them, with George Conway deploying an acronym for "Too Freaking Funny."
It wasn't just Lincoln Project founders who thought Trump had thin skin.
Money well spent?