At the moment, Trump and the media are locked in a perverse symbiotic relationship — the media wants to destroy him and he wants to constantly feed it the material to use against him. How does this make sense? Probably because as long as Trump is lighting up huge rallies and getting more media attention then he ever imagined possible, he doesn’t feel like he’s losing. More evidence for this view comes via this tweet this morning, which suggests Trump has enjoyed the furor over his “founder of ISIS” statement (a furor that was completely avoidable if he had been explicit from the beginning that he was being sarcastic or hyperbolic):
Donald Trump Losing Is Bad for the Republicans, but Trump Is Fine With ItI love watching these poor, pathetic people (pundits) on television working so hard and so seriously to try and figure me out. They can’t!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 12, 2016