He's unravelling.
The injury to his narcissistic ego can't bear the wound of having smaller crowds.
But then he lies about this, as he does about everything else. His inauguration crowd was bigger than Obama's in spite of evidence to the contrary. Kamala's crowds are created by AI.
He is patholoically desperate to be popular. He cannot bear to be less popular than Kamala. But he is.
It's also apparent that the flattery thing is connected to the desperate desire to be popular. You flatter him, you own him. As Putin and Xi know very well.