Donald Trump has been making his list of political enemies and checking it twice for quite some time now, making retribution the hallmark of his campaign. The night before the Iowa caucuses, he promised his supporters their vote would enable him to mete out punishment from the White House.
“These caucuses are your personal chance to score the ultimate victory over all of the liars, cheaters, thugs, perverts, frauds, crooks, freaks, creeps and other quite nice people,” Trump told rally attendees in Indianola, Iowa. “The Washington swamp has done everything in its power to take away your voice. But tomorrow is your time to turn on them and to say and speak your mind and to vote.”
“These caucuses are your personal chance to score the ultimate victory over all of the liars, cheaters, thugs, perverts, frauds, crooks, freaks, creeps and other quite nice people,” Trump told rally attendees in Indianola, Iowa. “The Washington swamp has done everything in its power to take away your voice. But tomorrow is your time to turn on them and to say and speak your mind and to vote.”
But in Trumpworld, there’s no higher form of betrayal than those in his own party who don’t prove sufficiently loyal. He made that perfectly clear at the Indianola event when he maligned Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, who endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“I just thought it was really disloyal,” Trump told the crowd. “I mean, I just don’t understand it. I don’t understand it. And that happens in politics.”
Guess what: o one wants the Reynolds treatment and everyone knew it was coming, which is exactly why Senate Republicans have started to fall like dominoes for Trump over the past week.
Senate Republicans’ number three, John Barrasso of Wyoming, helped kick off the stampede to endorse Trump last week, followed by Sen. Mike Lee of Utah on Friday. By Sunday, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida saw the writing on the wall, endorsing Trump before a single vote was cast while snubbing the governor of his state for Trump.
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas “enthusiastically” endorsed Trump Tuesday, telling Fox News it was “time for the Republican Party to unite.” It was a far cry from 2016 when Cruz, amid his presidential run, called Trump a “pathological liar.”
One caucus into the Republican primary, Trump has now amassed the endorsements of almost two-dozen Senate Republicans. Think of it:Just 110,000 voters—all of them from Iowa—have weighed in.
A core group of Senate Republicans allied with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell appear to be all but holding their breath until New Hampshire, after which they will gauge just how inevitable Trump is.
One of those holdouts, Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, dipped her toe in the endorsement waters last week, saying she wouldn’t rule out endorsing Trump but calling Nikki Haley “a great candidate.”
Following Trump’s Iowa rout, Ernst declined to pick a side, telling CNN, “I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that President Joe Biden does not occupy the White House.”
Asked specifically about Trump’s prospects of prevailing in the Republican primary amid his legal challenges, Ernst offered: “You know he did pretty darn well in Iowa. And I think you might see that continue. So, here we go. Get ready.”
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito walked a similar nonendorsement tightrope Tuesday, saying, “He certainly did well last night. We have New Hampshire right now, so we’ll see.”
The real tension here, besides the overall direction of the Republican Party, is that Senate Republicans have lost ground in the last two election cycles precisely because they have been saddled with Trump.
McConnell has declined to endorse anyone, proving all but useless once again in a moment of choosing for the Republican Party.
But one of his top deputies, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, walked straight into the buzzsaw, telling CNN he’s “always been worried” about Trump’s prospects in a general election.
“General elections are won in the middle of the electorate,” Thune told CNN. “All that has repercussions for Senate races, too. If we want to get the majority, we need a strong showing at the top of the ticket that translates into some down-ballot success.”
Senate Republicans who want to see the majority again know that if there’s one person at the top of the ticket who could kill this year’s killer map for them, it’s Trump.
But more than likely it’s only a matter of time before they all end up parroting Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who also hasn’t been in a rush to endorse Trump.
“I certainly am not going to do anything to help President Biden,” Cornyn said. “I think his administration has been disastrous. So, whatever it takes to stop a second Biden term, you can sign me up for.”
Of course, the immediate follow-up to that assertion should always be, “As disastrous as Jan. 6, record job losses, and $8 trillion in national debt?”
