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This week, I drill down on the final and most effective critique against the oldest presidential nominee of a major party, pick the distinguished person of the week and share a book about how diplomatic negotiations 105 years ago shaped the modern world.

In the closing weeks of her campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris has hit upon a compelling message: felon and former president Donald Trump is, well, a mess.

She put it this way in an interview with Roland Martin: “His staff won’t let him do a ‘60 Minutes’ interview. ... Everyone has done it except Donald Trump. He will not debate me again. I put out my medical records. He won’t put out his medical records. And you have to ask: Why is his staff doing that? And it may be because they think he’s just not ready — and unfit and unstable and should not have that level of transparency for the American people.” She hit the same notes in a series of battleground rallies describing Trump as “unstable and unhinged.” And at her rally in Erie, Pa., on Monday, she even played clips of Trump labeling his political opponents as “the enemies from within ... those people are more dangerous than Russia and China.”

Trump, as even mainstream outlets acknowledge, is becoming angrier, more threatening, more explicit in his authoritarian vision — and more incoherent. The uptick in unsteady, off-kilter performances has increased. On Monday, he seemed to prove Harris’s point at a bizarre town hall at which he cut off questions and swayed to the music for nearly 40 minutes. On Tuesday, he rambled, insulted the interviewer and American autoworkers, and then veered wildly off topic when asked a basic question about his economic plan.

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