Until today, immigration lawyer Jacob Monty was an advisor to the Trump campaign, working with him to craft an immigration message that was more palatable to more people.
But no more. He has resigned from the Trump campaign and went on MSNBC to share his theory of what Trump is actually trying to accomplish.
"Maybe he doesn't want to win," Monty suggested. "Maybe this is a media play, and I feel serious about that."
"What do you mean, he may not want to win?," Craig Melvin shot back.
Monty explained that people who want to win generally follow the advice of the people they bring on as advisors, and that they count on their self-preservation instincts to follow that advice, but Trump doesn't do that.
He went on to speculate, "Maybe this is part of a media play where he wants to create a media empire which will focus on the millions of nativists that believe the country needs to control immigration."
He continued, "If that's his play it will be good and he'll have millions of followers but he won't win the presidency."
To his credit, Melvin did not let Monty off the hook with regard to his own participation and support for Trump.
"But Jacob, in all honesty before last night I think a lot of folks suspected that, no?," Melvin asked skeptically. "He was not a traditional GOP candidate in a host of ways and now all of a sudden you sound surprised when, for the better part of the last year, you had a lot of folks saying precisely what you just said, that he can't be trusted, that you can't believe anything that comes out of his mouth, that he listens to the person who spoke to him last and you seem stunned by this," he went on.
Poor Monty was left having to admit that he was just being a good Republican soldier, but he can't do that anymore, no matter how hard he tried.
I don't think Trump wants to win either. But I do think there is more method to the madness than a simple media empire serving white supremacists. There is a malevolent and large anti-democratic movement afoot in this country, and it's bigger than the White House or the House of Representatives or the Senate.
