Trump thought he could win through sheer media dominance. In reality, it’s killing him.

THE MORNING PLUM:
This morning brings a truly rare sighting: Donald Trump admitting error. Sort of, anyway. He tweeted this:

In effect, Trump admitted that a claim he had been making for days — including at a blustery rally yesterday — was pure invention. He’d said he had witnessed video of the $400 million cash transfer made by the United States to Iran, even though no such video existed. Now he’s admitting the video he saw was actually of the prisoner swap.
This episode undercuts one of the most cherished assumptions about this race, one explicitly voiced by Trump and even entertained by some neutral observers: That Trump can win through sheer media dominance alone. In this particular episode, Trump gained enormous amounts of media attention by publicly hallucinating about video of the cash transfer. But did he really gain anything from all that attention, other than widespread ridicule, at a time when his poll numbers are tanking? Press coverage tends to get harsher when a candidate gets weaker, and that’s what this episode brought.