Panelists on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" reacted to a New York Times report showing President Donald Trump's disinterest in his own re-election campaign, or what he might accomplish in a second term.
The report shows instead that Trump calls up acquaintances to gauge his popularity against Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden, asks aides to lie about his low poll numbers and insists on final approval for campaign merchandise and music played at campaign events.
"I can see the argument for not being too much in the weeds with the day-to-day operations campaign," said Times reporter Nick Confessore, who did not author the report. "But this is a president who often seems distant from his own administration, he's distant from his own campaign."
"So what does he care about?" Confessore added. "What's he doing every day? Why is he there? We see him tweeting a lot, watching a lot of cable news -- not that there's anything wrong with that. It's important for him to figure out exactly why he's there and what fight he wants to wage."
MSNBC contributor Elise Jordan was struck by the level of detail in the piece about the president's apparent disinterest in governing and campaigning.
"The staff clearly doesn't like him very much," she said. "Can you imagine? The details of this piece if this had been about President Obama or President Bush, the disloyalty is running rampant in this administration. It's just another reminder."
MSNBC analyst Mike Barnicle said the answer to what Trump cares about is simple.
"He cares about himself," Barnicle said. "That's all he cares about -- himself -- and every day it is just an extension of his show that he has, with set-up villains -- it's either Joe Biden or the Mexican government."
"The president is obsessed with himself," he added, "not the country, not any formulation of plans to improve the country, not his goals for his administration's first term, certainly not what would be a second-term set of goals. It's himself."
