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Trump goes after Kayleigh McEnany — 71 Comments

1. Neo, I’ll take your word for it that he’s gotten worse. But unlike many of you I thought from the beginning that Trump was not right in the head. In fact that was the title of the first blog post I wrote about him, sometime in 2015. I would nevertheless have voted for him in 2016 if I didn’t live in such an overwhelmingly Republican state, so that my vote didn’t matter, and did vote for him in 2020 specifically because of Democratic efforts to engineer a national popular vote. I thought he did better than I expected as president, but I still thought he had a screw loose.

   “I can’t imagine it would make a lot of people especially eager to serve under him.” I’d go further and say that only a ruthlessly power- or attention-hungry person would do so.

2. I’ve seen comments to the effect that McEnany correctly cited the numbers she was looking at. Trump seems to imply that is so, by saying that she didn’t pick up a later correction. But either way, an attack like this on one of his most loyal employees during the presidency is disgraceful. As you say, Neo, who will want to work for him? This kind of thing is one of the reasons I will vote for DeSantis in the primary. If we win in 2024, we will need large numbers of credible conservatives to staff the government if we hope to make any headway on the Deep State. Trump has already announced that no one who works for DeSantis will get a position in a second Trump administration. With this kind of juvenile attack, he’s probably alienating even some people who might otherwise want to work for him.

   Combined with his saying that Cuomo did a better job on COVID than DeSantis, it seems to me that Trump’s self-control and judgment have gone over some kind of cliff.

3. Attacks like this make Trump look small, trivial, and insecure.

4. Those who remember my past comments will recall that I have written numerous times that I love Trump. I have also written numerous times that Trump’s attacks on the likes of DeSantis are counterproductive. I also wrote that Trump should be bragging about the governors and Congress members who have, regardless of what the policies are called, made his MAGA policies their own–all to the benefit of the USA.

   Trump’s unwise attacks on DeSantis have gone unabated. Still, Trump, until now, was arguably engaging is some sort of multi-dimensional chess.

   But, Trump has now gone over to definitely unhinged. There was nothing in Kayleigh McEnany’s comment that was in any way whatsoever an attack on Trump or an endorsement of DeSantis. Further, her comments were an accurate presentation of facts and intelligent observations.

   As neo noted, where Trump could have perhaps challenged her facts in a matter-of-fact manner, he instead painted McEnany as an enemy. He attacked McEnany, who consistently and often during her Fox News appearances has proudly spoken of the accomplishments of the Trump POTUS 45 administration. Heck, she has been a free commercial for again electing Trump. This attack by Trump is plain horrible.

   Shame on Donald J. Trump. What a very, very disheartening development.

   When we look back on Trump’s political career, this more than anything else so far, will be seen as evidence that Trump’s mental processes had taken a sharp downward turn. Whether the cause is his bout with COVID, the frustration with all the unfair attacks and prosecutions (actually persecutions), and the understandable disappointment that the Democrats did pull off a steal, with no negative consequences of the 2020 election, plain aging, or a combination of factors, neo has correctly noted the downward turn.

5. King Lear comes to mind.

   Sad.

   President Trump lashing out more and more inappropriately.

6. Sad.

7. I am a Trump guy, but he can be his own worst spokesman

8. Ira, I also was enthusiastic about Trump. I voted for him with reservations in 2016, and was very pleased with his much-better-than-I-hoped-for presidency. I voted for him with enthusiasm in 2020.

   I can’t vote in the primary for the man as he is now presenting himself.

9. I have been sick of this for a while, and I just wish it would stop. One thing it does show is that we will undoubtedly lose in 2024. The Republican split is the most bitter it has been since 1964. And this time it really isn’t a matter of ideology.

   But it is what it is, and there’s nothing we can do about it, but hope we can at least get the Senate. (Not that that’s worth much, either. I will vote D next time Tillis is up, if that’s the only way to get rid of the &^%$#.)

10. If you want a morning conservative commentary with your coffee, the Chicks on the Right are fun. Full of snark, and some great pet videos each day at the end. Can be found on YouTube.

    Of the two, Miriam has decided Trump is unelectable, Amy Jo not committed. However, after seeing Trump’s tweet about Kayleigh, there was a definite shift, and shock from Amy Jo. Both agreed this was not good at all.

11. I’ve been very disappointed in Trump’s inability to establish mutual loyalty with subordinates. Hard to understand how he was successful in business as he was, unless his approach totally changed. Or the political people are so different from the business people that his radar didn’t work anymore.

    It’s sometimes the case in early stage businesses that the person who makes a great founder is not the person who can take the business to the next level. We may be at that situation in conservative (or at least non-crazy) politics.

12. Yet at the same time, Trump has very high loyalty from his core block of voters.

13. james sisco (4:25 pm) said,
    “Attacks like this make Trump look small, trivial, and insecure.”

    I never followed Donald Trump, but I can say with surety that at least since the (in)famous 2015 escalator ride, Trump has always impressed me as being “small, trivial, and insecure.”

    And I will add, what a g#dd#mn asinine turd he is. I am so tired of him.

14. Re: physicsguy (5:39 pm) . . . https://chicksonright.com/

    Never before heard of them; okay, now I have.

15. Trump just cannot control his Jackassery tendencies. For the most part I tolerated while he was President, because his policies aligned. I did cringe a lot toward the end as the act got very old.

    I just read that he attacked “DeSanctimonious” (how childish is that?) for voting to confirm Wray for the FBI (I am tempted to refer to Wray as the Exalted Grand Dragon, of the National Police, but won’t.) The problem is that Trump stuck his big foot into his big mouth–again.

    DeSantis, of course, definitely did not vote to confirm Wray. DeSantis served in the House and the House had no vote in the Wray confirmation, or any other Presidential appointee’s confirmation.
    DeSantis, like a good solder, praised Trump’s nominee at the time.

    I will reprise my recent comment. I question whether Trump could get a credible running mate. He has now thrown virtually everyone who worked for him under the bus.

16. With everybody nodding their heads, why does nobody suggest the possibility of the obvious OTHER explanation: FNC and Murdock is obviously hostile to Trump.

    And as I understand it, McEneny now works for FNC.

    Could his ire be raised by FNC reporting, or news reporting in print or from other segments from that division?

    It strikes me reasonable counter-explanation to invidious arm chair psychologizing. Which neither impresses me nor persuades.

17. ”As to what I think motivates Trump to do this…”

    There’s an old saying in the business world, “B’s hire C’s. A’s hire other A’s.”

    On the rare occasion the Trump administration hired an obvious A (Flynn, McEnany), Trump eventually turned on him. It’s just a matter of time. He sees competence in a subordinate as being upstaged, and he just can’t have that.

    A Republican administration is going to need a lot of A’s to get anything done. With Trump at the top, that just won’t be in the cards.

18. And just like that nine comments, including my own, just disappeared.

19. Keep in mind the following (and then ask yourselves whether any of you could stand up to this kind of pressure from a ruthless criminal syndicate the likes of which the country has never seen in its entire history, a criminal syndicate that has seized power, hijacked the country and is determined to crush any and all opposition to its dream of total domination).
    YMMV.
    ‘The FBI is now admitting it has a document evidencing then-Vice President Joe Biden took a foreign bribe.
    ‘So brace for an indictment soon.
    ‘Of President Trump
    ‘From Garland Special Counsel Jack Smith.
    ‘For “obstruction.”
    ‘To deflect and protect Biden.’
    https://twitter.com/mrddmia/status/1664001941922516992?cxt=HHwWgMDQ3eW83JcuAAAA
    H/T Jeff Carlson Twitter feed.
    https://twitter.com/themarketswork

20. the guy who looks like zods no 2, perhaps slightly more verbose,

21. OK. Now they’re back. It seems I have to post a new comment to see my old comment.

    Edit: Until I posted this at 6:39, I couldn’t see any comments after 6:07, including my comment at 6:21, no matter how many times I refreshed.

22. If Trump is voted in as president, he will have difficulty in getting good people to work for him as well as getting those people confirmed by the Senate. And based on past history, it will be slow to get a working Executive Office. His second term will also be four years of conflict with a D then getting the next eight years.

    A strong R as the president will let us have eight years to change the situation in Congress and our un-elected bureaucracy.

    Remember the photo of Biden signing a whole stack of Exec Orders on the first day. I assume that most were reversing Trump’s EOs and policies. And, I don’t recall a heavy press evaluation on each EO, as there was for Trump’s. So, “someone” needs to be looking at Biden’s record and drafting new EOs for the president, whether it is Trump or DeSantis.

23. It is certainly petty of Trump, but I would have more sympathy for him if (1) the polling results were in fact “corrected upwards,” and (2) McEnany “knew” this and failed to disclose it in her commentary. Then you might speculate that she let some kind of bias work against the truth. My quick research failed to confirm any alteration in the polling results by the McLaughlin group that Trump has used, but it’s not clear what poll he had in mind. Whether Trump has changed post-Covid we do not know, but the sort of obsessive attention to details that take on a personal significance, as exhibited here, seems consistent.

24. Related tweet:

    https://twitter.com/GadSaad/status/1663758270610173953

25. If Biden is somehow out, would Congress approve appointment of Newsome as VP? Probably yes. He would be defacto President and run as the incumbent in 2024.

    Trump is destroying himself. He pas passed the tipping point.

    Reading the DeSantis campaign book totally convinced me that he is the real thing.

    Something new is the number of actual independents.

    DeSantis with Musk, Carlson, etc. behind him can create an entirely new GOP that can actually defund the Swamp, pass Term Limits, and enact the Fair Tax.

26. Trump is dead to me. Sorry to say it. RIP, Donald.

27. And to think I was very viciously attacked on this very blog for pointing out Trumps weaknesses as if, how dare I? Gen Mathis was a stand up hero until Trump said otherwise and all of a sudden the ever trumpers obeidiently followed. Where are they today. I havent seen them post so far.

28. Harry Mallory:

    Trump was a good president, in very difficult circumstances. But since leaving office he’s changed. And not for the better.

29. First Rex Tillerson was a closet RINO GOPe mole, then Jim Mattis, then Jeff Sessions, then Reince Preibus, then John Kelly, then John Bolton, then Bill Barr (right after he saved Trump’s bacon over Russiagate) . . . then Ron DeSantis, and now [. . .checks notes. . .] Kayleigh McEnany? Really? Is MTG next? How secure can Kari Lake feel, really?

    Trump hasn’t changed a bit since he rode down the elevator in 2015. This is who he is. He is a one-man bridge burning machine, including with a significant chunk of the electorate.

30. IrishOtter: “Trump was a good president, in very difficult circumstances. But since leaving office he’s changed. And not for the better.”

    Well no, Trump was a fair president who did many good things, but this erraticism is who Trump always was, which has been my criticism this entire time. This guy was always his own worse enemy.

31. I’ve been done with Trump for two years now. You lost the election, Baby, with or without vote fraud. He has turned into a raging monster who will tear the GOP tent down.

32. Concerned Conservative™ may want to examine his panoply of angels that The Great Orange Whale unjustly smote. Not all of them are pure celestial beings. But of course they serve to make President Trump’s recent unacceptable behaviour into an always present (fatal?) defect of character (soul?) to the Concerned Conservative™.

33. “This guy was always his own worse [sic] enemy.” warbles Harry Mallory, still staggering from all the unfair attacks on him.

    Not while you are alive, Harry. Not while you are alive.

34. Neo, FYI if you haven’t run across before:
    Trump’s covid treatment: Some have suggested that the president could be incapacitated because of the effects that the steroid can have on the mind. Dexamethasone’s side effects include anxiety, altered mood and cognitive impairment. https://www.bbc.com/news/health-54418464

35. ”It’s very interesting to read the comments at Instapundit on this topic, particularly the attempts to defend Trump…”

    Ugh. I wasn’t expecting much, but….wow. It’s both amazing and disgusting how with a single tweet he can cause seemingly millions of people to turn on someone they very recently sung praises to.

    American politics is beyond hope. I think I’ll have another drink.

36. Harry Mallory re Trump was a fair president who did many good things.

    As presidents go, a merely fair president who did many good things is a pretty good president in my book.

    As far as I’m concerned the “many good things” you credit him for outweighed his erraticism — at least while he was in office.

37. Hmmm. I wonder why my comment, the first one on this thread, disappeared?

38. Im sorry Irish Otter, I cant agree with you, His foibles are why hes a one term president. Im betting DeSantis can do better, with the same set of media enemies, an from the sound of it, without tacking towards the woke left.

    “warbles Harry Mallory, still staggering from all the unfair attacks on him…”

    Yep, thats how it was, vicious as if somehow it was personal. Why is that Leo? Can you show me on this Donald Trump doll where I hurt you?

39. A lot of people don’t get why Trump governed the way he did, last time.

    Trump only governed conservatively because…
    (a.) he was surrounded by religious-right icons who were willing to flatter him; and,
    (b.) the Democrats constantly insulted and attacked him.

    So, he did what Trump does: He became the instinctive enemy of whoever criticized him, and the friend of whoever was nice to him. If Dems had treated him with respect and courtesy, and then tricked some religious conservatives into criticizing him for adultery or whatever, I’m confident Trump would have accepted a meaningless deal on the border from Schumer & Co., and then stacked the Supreme Court with left-of-center justices.

    Does that seem strange? It shouldn’t. That’s just how Trump rolls. He reacts to his buttons being pushed. What, did anyone imagine that his governing decisions were the organic output of a deeply-held and consistent philosophical attachment to conservative thought?

    The whole world has had several years to learn what pushes his buttons, and how predictably he acts when his buttons are pushed. It’s hard to think of a public figure so easy to manipulate if you know how, and can bring yourself to do it.

    I think that if Trump took office again, the fact that he wouldn’t be running for re-election this time wouldn’t change his behavior overmuch. That’s too long-term to impact him.

    What would change his behavior is Democrats being complimentary and inviting him to parties. The Huckabees and Pompeos of the world would be tossed out like used Kleenex. (I’m not saying the Dems could bring themselves to do it, though!)

    Either way, his behavior is solely the result of short-term calculation (when it’s calculated), the joy of nailing the punchline (when he finds one he can deliver), and an inability to stop himself hurling insults (when someone’s even faintly critical of him). Maybe there’s more to him than that, but…I don’t think so.

    So that’s what we’d get, if per impossible he regained the White House.

    But, I don’t think he can make it into office again. If he’s getting remotely close, I think we can anticipate he’ll be taken out. Our current NatSec establishment — not the whole crowd, mind you, but some number of decision-makers with sufficient clout to make it happen — would be willing to grant Quds Force a free shot, and allow them to claim they were taking revenge for the killing of Qasem Soleimani. And I’m sure there are other ways they could make it happen.

    If he gets the nomination, and if his running-mate looks like a better selection (from the alphabet agencies’ point-of-view, I mean) than Trump himself is, I will frankly expect something like that.

    I am mildly surprised to find that I think that way, now. But I’m not outraged. I don’t even find it exciting to think about. It is an oddly boring thought: Our government locks up political prisoners, runs psyops against the citizens, and would assassinate a presidential candidate they disliked. Shrug. Yawn. My resignation on this point reminds me of the old Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn quote: “We know that they are lying, they know that they are lying, they even know that we know they are lying, we also know that they know we know they are lying, they of course know that we certainly know they know we know they are lying, all of this, but they are still lying.”

40. It’s a shame. I don’t know who is giving DJT political advice, maybe no one, but it’s pretty bad advice. His negative ads on Desantis are asinine, IMO. Hitting Kayleigh over a poll – really bad.

    I know he’s under a lot of pressure. The full weight of the DOJ and New York’s legal systems are aiming to put him in jail. I would be ready to snap at people for the smallest slights too. But that’s no excuse. He needs to be bigger than that. It’s a very sad thing. For him and for the country.

    I agree that there is a huge split in the GOP now and not much chance of mending it. It’s early and anything can happen, but I don’t like what I see right now.

    One pundit (I forget who) said that only Trump and DeSantis are in the populist lane. All the others are in the GOPe lane. But I think that Ramaswamy is in the populist lane too. Few know him now, but he will make the debate stage, and I think he might surprise a lot of people. We’ll see.

    I’m trying to stay calm, watch events closely, and make up my mind when the picture becomes clearer. That said, any one of the declared GOP candidates is superior to any candidate the Dems will field. So, there’s that.

41. I’ve realized a long time ago that my metric for voting is very different from other people. I don’t care what the president, any president, says. Words are cheap. Actions are far from cheap and that’s what to look for. But that’s not my metric, I ask “Will this candidate decrease my freedom, my economic standing or otherwise harm my family and me?”. I felt Obama would and certainly Clinton would. So I voted against them. Quite frankly I’d vote for anyone who would meet my requirements. That’s why you should watch the actions and don’t listen to the words.

42. JJ, I’d be happy about a DeSantis/Ramaswamy ticket. Unlike Kamala, Vivek would be VP to whom projects could actually be delegated.

43. this will be a long tract, let me try to explain trump

    all he wanted to do was ‘make america great again’ he is the son of an immigrant,a builder, who lived in the greatest city in the world, from his perspective, in the greatest country in the world, the business started out in affordable housing and also supermarkets, he dealt with jews, and gays and blacks, without any problem, did he know roy cohn was both (probably) live and let live, he went to military school, but by 1968, he realized there was something wrong about our intervention in vietnam, he saw the justice department force his father out of the affordable housing market, so he went upscale, he won and lost fortunes, in the casino business, he was encouraged to run for office, by many who despise him now, he trusted in people who he thought were more skilled in that field, he saw America was losing its manufacturing base, to Japan initially and other places, he saw Americans were losing their place and Europe was gaining a step, which he saw as ungrateful for all the sacrifices, (this was the argumen of his first public outing in policy) after the Cold War, he saw the collapse of the manufacturing base, accelerate and more attention to far off lands, he warned against Bin laden in 99, but no one was really interested,
    he signed off what was the revenge for what had been done to his city, but he found echoes of Vietnam in other lands, everytime there were other considerations, he felt w had failed in prosecuting this war, this is why he lavished too much praise on obama,he understood debt to some degree, how it hobbled your choices, he turned a little too quickly on the stupid birth certificate tract, imho, but his focus was on rebuilding the economy, everything else was subordinate to that, so he formally entered the race in 2015, and he found a pit of vipers some close to his bosum, some far afield, (to be continued)

44. Look folks, I could take erraticism or poor character if it was accompanied by good, effective policy. The problem with Trump is that his erraticism and poor character prevent him from suceeding.

    – His antics alienate voters. If you can’t win, you can’t govern.

    – His antics make it much more difficult to staff an administration. This was already a problem in the first Trump administration. There isn’t going to be a second Trump administration, but even if there is, the staffing problems will become much worse because of all the people he’s burned since initially entering politics. (Yeah om – Jeff Sessions, Ron DeSantis, and Kayleigh McEnany – what a bunch of GOPe RINOs! 🙂 )

    – His antics compromise his ability to enact good policies. The number of Trump policies stymied by the incompetence of his administration was staggering. Sally Yates was very, very wrong, but how does an administration issue something as controversial as Trump’s travel ban without having their own nominee at DOJ first? Or without at least firing the holdover political appointee from the previous administration? The incompetence of the Trump team is the only reason that Yates had the opportunity for her mischief. Trump lost on the census citizenship question because his administration either lied or couldn’t keep its story straight. Trump did not build a wall, and appeared to have no aptitude for doing so. His hamfisted attempt to declare an emergency and redirect funds from other appropriations was shut down by the courts. The list goes on and on.

    Some people around here try to portray opposition to Trump as some sort of principled “don’t want to stain our white garments” sort of thing. It’s not that. It’s more like I “don’t want to live under Biden and/or Harris for another four years, don’t want Democrats to control the Congress, or on the snowball’s chance in hades that Trump actually gets himself elected again, don’t want four years of ineptitude followed by complete progressive hegemony for the rest of my life.”

45. “His antics alienate votes…”

    But then how does one explain his victory in 2020?
    OK, OK, OK, OK…I’ll rephrase:
    “But then how does one explain the NEED for the Democrats to steal the election in 2020?”
    There, everyone happy now???

46. “…which he saw as ungrateful…”

    And THAT, rightly or wrongly, is “all ye’ need to know”….

47. cont) so he comes into office, have beaten shelob (ht irish) and this stupid Russian ouvno faces him, say what, (redacted) he replaces comey and the roof falls in, he makes a modest immigration pause, and well it’s ragnarok, (based on the criteria of the 2016 omnibus, that the house and senate pretend they never wrote) of course you know the carp he was put through, mccain that vekakte betrays him on the obamacare repeal, these scorpions like letitia and co, come in with a vendetta, he spends a long time trying to reset the economic table in favor of America, but we’re focused on other matters, he felt for the people of syria, so he engages that front in ways obama couldnt, He finds so many people he was recommended turn against him, and some he should have never trusted like cohen (but he was doing a favor for some friend) he sees the scranton clan ruthlessly feed off our country, and calls it out, (he becomes the guilty party)
    then covid strikes his city, his town of queens hardest, he knows where it comes from and why, he sees many people he grew up, wither and die, he pushes for effective therapeutics, they are denied reasons don’t matter, at this point, he foolishly enables fauci and birx to take the stage, (are they not the best and the brightest) the persecutions continue, the death toll mounts up, this shambling fool and his whole corrupt crew, lay in the wings, they strike and steal the election in a handful of boroughs, unlike in 2000, the legal establishment is unwilling to even examine the cases, most of those who would attempt to are blackballed,

48. Concerned Conservative™ up to his usual antics. Three were angels, the rest must also be so. Reasons ….

    “Thar, she blows!”

49. so the courts refuse, so do an appeal to the Capitol, he didn’t know they had planted dozens of agents in the crowd, (long story short) this delta house prank becomes an insurrection, unlike the summer of fire and ruin, that threatened a hundred cities.in the interim he gathers evidence of the previous fraud, he thinks he has some refuge in the home he has had since 2017, but he discovers thats not remotely true,

    everything he warned the europeans against relying on putin, about the immigration tsunami including from many countries that desire ill to us, the need for resource explanation, is erased, this gang of pirates is given free reign by mcconnell and co, to destroy this country, he sees another ruinous european war, that he moved heaven and earth to prevent,

50. Typical om – Pretending that all of the other criticisms of Trump just dissolve away if you can show that Rex Tillerson really is a RINO.

51. a war that benefits china in ways small and large, that makes us much weaker, the end he feared in afghanistan, came to pass in ways he probably didn’t envisage and all those bastards who made up those ‘afghan bounties’ were silent when the 13 were slaughtered at the Bastion gate,

52. miguel cervantes – Trump is not the son of an immigrant. His father was born in the Bronx. Also, your musings about Vietnam look much different when you remember that Trump avoided service in Vietnam on a medical deferrment by claiming bone spurs.

    All that aside, though, even if you make a compelling case for excusing Trump’s foibles, that’s not the issue here. We’re told again and again that any Republican will have to face all of the things that Trump faced. Why wouldn’t we want a candidate/president who can handle what the left is going to throw at them without acting like a buffoon?

53. now I try to understand how he thinks and how he feels, looking over these last three years, yes he got covid, but he survived it, unlike so many in his home town, his city, his nation didn’t, survivors guilt, this wasn’t a natural event, this was an engineered catastrophe by so many parties that are unaccountable, a collaboration with China, to sunder this nation, I don’r excuse some of his tactics but I understand them,

    that last bit was the petty psychologizing,

54. Trump may have gotten worse, but the environment has also changed, so what worked in 2016 doesn’t work now. Trump ran then as an absolute outsider. He could attack the other candidates as different versions of the same thing. Over the last seven years, he changed the Republican Party. It’s become more Trumpian. It’s picked up his issues.

    What worked against Cruz or Rubio or Bush might work against Sununu and might have worked against Larry Hogan, but it’s not going to work against DeSantis. It worked because of serious policy differences with Rubio or Bush, and now it becomes personal and petty against DeSantis. Trump doubles down on the abuse of DeSantis and whoever else displeases him to the point where it becomes juvenile.

    The other thing that changed is that Trump is running out of people who will work for him. Either he’s already insulted him or they know what to expect in Trump’s White House. He’s also going to have trouble finding people in Congress who will work with him. They know what to expect.

    It may be that Trump was only right-wing because Democrats regarded him as Satan and rightists said nice things about him, but Democrats and progressives demonize any Republican President, and Trump didn’t fold up under the pressure (as George W. Bush did at the end of his presidency). So I give Trump credit for that. Also, I liked that Trump hadn’t spent his whole life in the conservative movement. His approach was fresher, and he wasn’t encumbered by so much baggage.

    It would have been better if Trump had paid more attention to the deficit, but politicians who came up in the conservative movement have had the same problem balancing budgets when they were in office. It wasn’t like McConnell or Ryan were going to make deficits an issue either.

55. maybe it will work, maybe it won’t, one thing is true, the progs are diligent in grinding this country to powder, and scattering the ashes, they use the likes of the golem fetterman, and the shambling husk from scranton, just to show how much they despise this country ‘and those who make this country work’

56. Neo,

    I read over-and-over that there is a huge contingent of “only-Trump” voters who will only vote for Trump in 2024. Supposedly, unless Trump is the Republican nominee, these “only-Trump” voters will vote for Trump as a third party spoiler, vote for some other third-party spoiler if Trump does not run third-party or not vote at all.

    Obviously, Trump and those in the MSM who believe Trump is a weak opponent in 2024 tout the idea that there are millions of these “only-Trump” voters. So, it is odd to me that I have never met one of these millions, and that includes several friends who actively work on the Trump campaign, several candidates for elected office in 2024 who purport complete devotion to Trump and many others who have been and are enthusiastic Trump supporters and donors. I would count myself in the latter category, but perhaps with somewhat diminished enthusiasm.

    Most of the debate I hear is about electability – Trump vs Desantis. Often this argument come down to Desantis cannot win because the “only-Trump” voters won’t support him and/or Trump will play the spoiler. Surely, this means that an accurate assessment of just how many “only-Trump” voters there really are is critical. Neo, I wish you would turn your research and analysis tools to this question.

    Your regular commenters do not seem to include many “only-Trump” voters – most seem to be of the “I will support anyone who can beat Biden” stripe, Desantis, Trump or someone else. However, Powerline and Instapundit seem to have a very vocal “only-Trump” cohort, although I suspect some may be trolls.

57. largely because many of the hot takes at powerline are stupid, in line with what we see in their own environs in mogadishu north,

58. Harry Mallory:

    FYI, I support DeSantis now. As I said, Trump is now dead to me.

59. Point of information: Trump IS the son of an immigrant. His mother, Mary (MacLeod) Trump was a Gaelic-speaking immigrant from the Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Scotland.

60. Concerned Conservative™ antics continue, not deneying that President Trump’s attacks in McEnany and DeSantis are a deal breaker and as neo suggests abnormal for Trump, nope, the Concerned Conservative™ takes it to absurdity by implying that some rouge actors from 2016-2020 were actually blameless, innocent lambs slaughtered by the evil Orange One (hyperbole). It is the usual CC™ game, pursuing The Great Orange Whale to the gates of Hell.

61. He is so disgusting that I really loath him. Kayleigh McEnaney was one of the best people working for Trump.

62. The best prediction for Trump’s political career came From Burt Reynolds who was involved in the USFL (US Football League) when Trump was. Burt said to not let Trump do the same thing to the USA that he did with the USFL. Trump was not interested in promoting the league but in getting an NFL franchise. Later before his death, Reynolds said he had reluctantly supported Trump in the election.

    Trumps inability to work with his own staff let alone other Republicans is his worst feature (among many). Leaders can’t be selfish and unsupportive of their team.

    Jerk

63. Hard to understand anyone who defends him in these things.

    Kayleigh was loyal and effective when she served as press secretary, exactly what one would want from someone representing the President before the media.

    Trump’s narcissism has always been his biggest weakness, his lack of any filter his biggest enemy.

64. gallchobhair – I stand corrected. Thanks.

    om – You are working very, very hard to miss my point. Trump burns everyone: RINOs like Tillerson and Priebus, very early supporters who gave legitimacy to his 2016 candidacy like Sessions, previous MAGA operators-in-good-standing like DeSantis and McEnany, it doesn’t matter to Trump. It really looks like some sort of revolutionary purge that begins with common enemies but ultimately eats everyone. That’s a problem if you want to win elections and be the leader of a team. It’s a big problem.

    *In fariness to Tillerson, I’m not even sure he was a Republican, which would seem to be a requirement if one is to be a RINO.

65. I think he is just aging. I’ve noticed that in myself, just little things like making mistakes more often. Some of that is my vision going in the toilet, I don’t see things like typos, but I do notice a general decline in awareness in my late 70’s.

66. Pingback:Trump goes after Kayleigh McEnany - Jagaban

67. Patrick Byrne, author of The Deep Rig wrote: “I was told something by someone in Trump’s inner circle: Melania had recently been warned by a government official that if Donald Trump served another term, he would be JFK’d.”

68. Bad move by Trump.

69. Concerned Conservative™ doesn’t seem to understand what “everyone” means, exaggerate much?

    In his desire to cast The Great Orange Whale into Hell he ignores anyone that OMB has not shat upon. Low bar? Maybe. It seems that Trump has gotten worse and more aggressive in his attacks, as neo noted. But that is his mode now, sad, and self destructive to voters.

70. If there is some way for Trump to shoot his mouth off about anything he will do so a anyone’s expense even his “friends” .Ask Pence and a thousand other we could all name quickly. Trump is summer soldier.

71. well pence was a spanner in the works for much of the administration, even before covid lying about general flynn, which he continues to do in his memoir, then one of his aides olivia toye enabled fauci and birx,

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