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A very high-ranking Trump White House official once told me the key to the president’s behavior.
It happens when his advisors talk him into something that he doesn’t particularly want to do.
The next time he’s around reporters, this person says, President Trump will blurt out what he really thinks.
He’ll either walk it back, soften the language, create confusion or flatly contradict what he said a couple of days before. It’s his way of rebelling against being handled.
And, of course, he’ll lash out at Republicans who disagree with him, post insulting messages, or endorse their primary opponents.
To Trump, that’s just counterpunching.
President Donald Trump speaks during an executive order signing in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C. (Shawn Thew/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
After the House narrowly voted Wednesday to invoke the War Powers Act, to force an end to the Iran conflict, four Republicans — Thomas Massie, Warren Davidson, Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Barrett — broke with their party.
Trump’s Truth Social response:
“Yesterday, in a meaningless vote, the House voted, 4 bad Republicans and all of the Democrats, to limit my War Powers, right in the middle of my final negotiations to end the War with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Trump wrote. “Who would do such an unpatriotic thing? They know where the negotiations stand. The Democrats are fueled by Trump Derangement Syndrome. They would rather have our Country fail than give me another, of many, victories. The four Republicans, that’s a whole other story – They’re GRANDSTANDERS! They should be ashamed of themselves.”
And I’m sure there will be more to come.
Even if the 215-208 vote is followed by Senate approval, Trump can simply veto it. And there is a legal dispute about whether Congress can actually undermine the commander-in-chief, given that presidents of both parties have waged undeclared wars.
An even sharper example involves the $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund that triggered on-the-record outrage from Republicans as well as Democrats. The idea that the bulk of the money would go to the Jan. 6 rioters who beat up cops and threatened lawmakers struck a very deep chord among members who were in the Capitol on that dark and depressing day in 2021.
Trump could see this was a losing issue — or was persuaded of that — and after a leak that he was considering abandoning the project, he said it was dead. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said it was dead.
RELATED: GOP ADVANCES ICE FUNDING PACKAGE AFTER FORCING TRUMP’S CONTROVERSIAL $2B FUND RETREAT
A scene from the Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol in 2021. (Julio Cortez/AP Photo, File)
But the next time he saw reporters, he pried open the crypt door he had supposedly shut.
He absolutely unloaded on CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins for asking why he had changed his mind about what everyone was calling a slush fund — in other words, doing her job.
“So, I love it. I think it’s so important… What happened to great people, great American people, the way they were victimized, the way they were savaged, you have suicides, they killed themselves. They were bankrupt. They were weaponized by the Biden administration, by a bunch of thugs, including Obama people. And like nobody’s probably ever been. I mean, I can think of maybe two instances in this country where they’ve had it to somewhere [at] that extent. I’m not even sure if it was so much,” Trump said. “They were put in jail for long periods of time. They were accused of things that never happened. They had prosecutors that were radical lunatics, and their lives were destroyed. And frankly, we had a lawsuit that, against us on the weaponization where the judge, a radical left judge, ruled against it. And we’ll see how that all works out. But a radical left judge ruled against it.”
We’ll see how it all works out.
Is it dead?
“I’d have to ask the lawyers,” Trump said.
Uh, the lawyers work for him.
The president wasn’t done.
“But these people, their lives have been destroyed. Their families have been destroyed — many of them. I’m not just talking about a few people,” he said. “Many have been destroyed, many of them. I’m not just talking about a few people. Many of them. I’m one of them, I look, they raided my house, Mar-a-Lago. That never happened. Nobody ever thought of anything like that.”
And then it got really personal.
“They’re crooked as hell. CNN’s a very corrupt organization, but, with a corrupt reporter standing right there. Never smiles. You never— she’s a young, beautiful woman. Never smiles, I never see a smile off her face, I see her standing there with hatred in her eyes. She has hatred because we have borders, because we have a strong military, because we cut our taxes, because we do things that everybody wanted. And then we win our election in a massive landslide. We win 87 percent of the counties in this country,” Trump said.
CNN’s response: “Kaitlan Collins is an exceptional journalist, reporting every day from the White House and the field with real depth and tenacity. She skillfully brings that reporting to the anchor chair and CNN platforms every day, which audiences around the world know they can trust.”
So is the fund again showing signs of life? Who knows?
Trump was just saying what he really believed all along.
The Senate failed Thursday by one vote to ban any attempt to revive the fund. The tally was held open for hours as the leadership tried to count noses. They have the option of trying again to drive a stake through the project. These guys want it in writing.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
The larger takeaway is that Trump’s iron grip on the party has loosened just a bit. After 16 months in which GOP lawmakers gave him virtually anything he wanted, the slush fund prodded them into realizing they could chart their own path and (mostly) survive — and that sentiment seems contagious right now.
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What’s more, while Trump’s MAGA support remains rock solid, the swing vote in the midterms will be independents as well as disillusioned Republicans. And that’s why putting a little distance between themselves and the president seems like a sensible course of action.
At least until the next Trump controversy erupts, any moment now.
