I find his behaviour and motivations very difficult to follow.
He wants to be loved, which makes a fair number of bad politicians do bad things because it's more important to them at any one time to please the people in the room than the people they made a contradictory promise five minutes ago in a different room. He also wants to be seen as this century's Winston Churchill - the "glorious hero" fantasy version - so he's not willing to go out in defeat.
His entire journalistic and political career has been based on lying, stealing ideas and never taking responsibility. Which worked really well in combination with his various personality disorders/corruption/being subject to blackmail until the point where the buck actually stops with him.
He wants to be loved, which makes a fair number of bad politicians do bad things because it's more important to them at any one time to please the people in the room than the people they made a contradictory promise five minutes ago in a different room. He also wants to be seen as this century's Winston Churchill - the "glorious hero" fantasy version - so he's not willing to go out in defeat.