August 20th got off to a rough start for the president of the United States. His former campaign CEO and chief White House strategist, Steve Bannon, was indicted for bank and wire fraud. Trump also saw a Federal District Court judge rule that he must turn over his tax returns to Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr. who is investigating an array of potential business and financial crimes. Meanwhile, the Wisconsin Elections Commission looks like it will keep Kanye West off the ballot, and the Montana Supreme Court blocked the Green Party from appearing on the state’s presidential ballot. In both of these latter cases, it was obvious that Trump was behind an effort to dilute his opponent’s vote by confusing voters with bogus alternatives.

Perhaps even more hurtful, Trump discovered that Sean Hannity privately tells his friends that he is “a batshit crazy person.” It didn’t help that a Morning Consult poll was released finding him trailing Joe Biden by double digits and pulling in a mere 36 percent among all potential voters.

In what can only be described as a desperate move, Trump planned to spend the day in Joe Biden’s childhood home of Scranton, Pennsylvania. I suppose he thought this a clever way to distract from the fact that Biden will be accepting the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in the evening. It will do more to remind folks that their Hometown Hero has done good.

As an aside here, the Republicans have outpaced the Democrats in registering new voters in Pennsylvania, but then there is this: 1,280,391 registered Democrats requested absentee ballots in the primaries compared to 526,706 Republicans.

In any case, Trump is still smarting for watching Kamala Harris call him a “predator” during her vice-presidential acceptance speech, and he could not have enjoyed being skewered by former president Barack Obama as an unserious person who is simply incapable of performing his duties.

On the whole, it seems like Trump’s plans aren’t going very well. He must be stressed when he thinks about his upcoming convention will compare to the Democrats’ show, which has been very well produced. We know Trump is obsessed with how things look on television, which is why he was insisting on a traditional convention with no masks or social distancing until it became clear that no one would cooperate with his directives. But he’s the furthest thing from prepared to air a virtual convention.

Multiple sources told The Daily Beast that when Democratic officials met with various broadcast network executives about their convention coverage plans, the executives stressed that they could not broadcast two hours each night in part because they then would have to give the same airtime to Trump, and all the wild unpredictability that might entail from an editorial perspective.

“We don’t know what that content is going to be,” was the line offered up, according to one source.

While the Democrats decided months ago that their national convention would be a virtual event, it wasn’t until July 23—when Trump decided that the COVID-19 pandemic would make his plans for a gathering in Jacksonville unworkable—that the GOP followed suit. The result was that the Democrats provided the networks with a detailed schedule of speakers and videos while the Republicans’ convention schedule is still a moving target.

Executives at multiple networks told The Daily Beast privately that they were still almost completely in the dark about basic details of next week’s RNC, including its format and its roster of speakers.

Biden had two former presidents appear, as well as 2004 nominee John Kerry. Trump can’t count on that. Bob Dole is 97 years old and George W. Bush won’t speak on his behalf. In fact, the last Republican candidate before him, Mitt Romney, voted to convict Trump of an impeachable offense and remove him for office. The widow of John McCain appeared at the Democratic convention and endorsed the Biden/Harris ticket.

The list of announced speakers at the Republican convention is very sparse:

Vice President Mike Pence, meanwhile, is expected to deliver remarks on Wednesday from the Fort McHenry monument near Baltimore. Trump’s family, including first lady Melania Trump and some of the president’s adult children, will also have prominent speaking roles next week.

Some of the lawmakers expected to deliver convention speeches include Trump’s former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina and Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, according to reports from The Washington Post, CNBC and CNN.

I’m not sure why Joni Ernst wants to associate herself with Trump since she’s facing reelection, but it’s notable that only two U.S. Senators are slated to appear, and none of them are part of the leadership. I don’t know how they expect to produce four days of programming on such short notice and with so few willing participants.

It definitely sucks to be Trump.