The prospective presidential nominee of the Republican Party had a window in the calendar during his criminal trial in New York. So, back in Florida, he spoke to a private gathering of high-end GOP donors. His address to them was either crazy, vicious, or crazy and vicious at the same time. Naturally, several someones taped it and shared it with the rest of the country—which, alas, seems to have shrugged and moved along to hating college students. For the record, this is some of what he said. From The New York Times:
These people are running a Gestapo administration... And it’s the only thing they have. And it’s the only way they’re going to win, in their opinion, and it’s actually killing them. But it doesn’t bother me.When you are Democrat, you start off essentially at 40% because you have civil service, you have the unions and you have welfare. And don’t underestimate welfare. They get welfare to vote, and then they cheat on top of that—they cheat.He also continued to lie about the various prosecutions aimed at him, and about the results of the 2020 election. He saved his special ire for special counsel Jack Smith, calling him an “evil thug” and “deranged.”
Mr. Trump also mocked the physical appearance of Jack Smith, the special counsel who has indicted him twice. “He’s unattractive both inside and out,” Mr. Trump said. “This is one unattractive dude.” He then used two expletives to describe Mr. Smith.One of them was, allegedly, “fucking asshole,” according to other reports.
But having the former president* unleash his inner lycanthrope wasn’t the most dispiriting element of the evening. As a kind of command performance, he brought up on stage all of the rumored candidates for vice president, and all of them complied. Dance, monkeys, dance!
Among the featured guests at the retreat this weekend are a number of potential vice presidential candidates, including Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem.This was a trip down through the derelict Republican Tomorrowland. I remember when Burgum, for example, was touted as a kind of safety-valve candidate—a red-state governor who was every bit as wealthy as El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago pretends to be. Scott was going to bring back Black voters. Vance was the Rural Voter whisperer. And, according to Time magazine, in what now feels like the second Eisenhower administration, Rubio was “The Republican Savior.” Now they dance, monkeys, dance to the Pied Piper of Shamlin. Scott even went on Meet the Press on Sunday and refused to say whether or not he will accept a loss in next fall’s election. He and Kristen Welker played verbal tetherball on the subject.
WELKER: But is it—just yes or no? Will you accept the election results of 2024?
SCOTT: I look forward to President Trump being the 47th president, and Kristen, you can ask them multiple times—WELKER: Senator, just a yes or no answer.SCOTT: —but at the end of the day—so the American people, the American people will make the decision. And the decision will be—WELKER: But I don’t hear you committing—SCOTT: —for President Trump. That’s clear.WELKER: I don’t hear you coming to the election results.SCOTT: Here’s the deal. This is why so many—WELKER: Will you commit to accepting the election results?SCOTT: This is why so many—this is why so many Americans believe that NBC is an extension of the Democrat party. At the end of the day, I said what I said. I know that the American people, their voices will be heard. And I believe that President Trump will be our next president. It’s that simple.WELKER: But senator, as you know, the hallmark of our democracy is that both candidates agree to a peaceful transfer of power. So I’m asking you as a potential VP nominee, will you accept to commit to the election results in this election cycle, no matter who wins? Just simply yes or no.SCOTT: I expect President Trump to win the next election, and listen, I’m not going to answer your hypothetical question when in fact I believe the American people are speaking today on the results of the election and if it continues—if it continues for the next six months, we find ourselves in a great position where we get back to another degree of American prosperity. I’m looking forward to that.
If Tim Scott were more of a tool, he’d be available at Home Depot.
Over on CNN, Burgum did his dance of submission and supplication for Jake Tapper, accusing the president and his campaign of buying votes. From Forbes:
Burgum added that President Joe Biden’s repeated push to forgive student loan debt for millions is a way of buying votes: “Citizens understand those are like free election payoffs. Those are like ‘Hey, folks, please vote for us because we’re relieving your debt. At what point does it cross over from programs like student debt (forgiveness) to just vote-buying.” Tapper asked if using such programs to “buy votes” was any different than Trump promising lower taxes in exchange for the support of conservative billionaires. Burgum skirted the question and replied by accusing the anchor of “disparaging” Trump’s wealthiest donors.Burgum also had some things to say about the former president*’s current legal woes.
Well, if he becomes a convicted felon in this case, that’s just a travesty of justice, because, as I just said, when you’ve got a business filing error that is for something that was, again, it’s not illegal to pay people for non-disclosure agreements. That happens all the time. I’m sure this network and others have done that. So that’s not illegal. And then you’ve got a, you know, again, they’re trying to do this... And, like I said, a filing error is not something that would affect the American people that are trying to put food on the table and gas in the car, it doesn’t affect them. And, so, this is why the outcome of this trial is not going to change a lot of people’s minds. It might actually, in some ways, help President Trump because it reinforces the idea that the Biden administration is willing to use lawfare to try to attack a political opponent.To his credit, Tapper pushed back hard on this nonsense. But that didn’t obviate the abject self-abnegation on display among allegedly influential Republicans all during this lost weekend in Palm Beach.
And don’t even bring up Marco Rubio. I left my electron microscope in my other jacket.
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Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.
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