Despite yet another whirlwind week of campaign news, the dour mood inside Mar-a-Lago hasn’t changed much at all. In fact, according to sources familiar with the situation, new frustrations seem to be cropping up all the time: Trump is not only pissed about Kamala Harris’s bonkers fundraising ($310 million in July, and another $36 million in the 24 hours after announcing Tim Walz), but also the fact that his campaign hasn’t been able to land any blows on his more youthful political foil. (“Kamabla,” for some reason, just doesn’t quite have the right ring to it…) And instead of focusing on his own spate of unforced errors—like absurdly questioning her racial identity—he’s glancing around him, wondering if it’s time for a reshuffle. His campaign, naturally, wants to keep him “on task,” but outside voices appear to be breaking through, and are starting to have more sway over the principal than the homebound and deferential denizens of Mar-a-Lago. 

Of course, it goes without saying that Trump would be more successful training his fire on Harris’s record on immigration or hammering her fracking flip-flop, rather than claiming Harris is the second coming of Rachel Dolezal. But it may also be fair to question whether his brain trust is living in the past. Chris LaCivita, who famously ran the Swift Boat Veterans campaign against John Kerry, has spearheaded an attack on Walz’s military record, but it’s yet to have the same impact as it did in 2004, when the U.S. had recently invaded Iraq. Other Trump allies are wondering if pollster Tony Fabrizio is likewise frozen in carbonite, as he considers a race-baiting strategy against Harris akin to the Willie Horton ads against Dukakis back in 1988.