The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman expressed her surprise at GOP nominee Donald Trump appearing to have been caught off guard by the news that Vice President Kamala Harris will likely replace President Joe Biden as the Democratic 2024 nominee.

Trump and his MAGA allies on conservative Fox News and beyond have melted down over the possibility of the former president having to run against Harris after Biden announced the end of his campaign on Sunday. Biden immediately endorsed his vice president.

“It’s very confusing why Trump’s team’s so unprepared for this because it’s only been clear for five weeks that this was probably the direction that this was heading,” Haberman said Monday on CNN.

“Number one, all anybody was talking about was that President Biden was unlikely to be able to continue until November,” she explained. “And that, number two the likeliest replacement was the vice president on the top of the ticket.”

Trump and his campaign “seem unsettled” on exactly how they want to run against Harris, suggested Haberman, who then noted how he routinely attacks women as “mentally unstable, weak, not up to it” and has previously peddled against Harris a version of the racist birther conspiracy theory he pushed for years about former President Barack Obama.

“There is a risk that he is going to go too far and that there will be a backlash effect,” Haberman warned.