Donald Trump is surrounded by scandal, enraging everyone from the Justice Department to families of 9/11 victims. But he’s still the presumptive Republican nominee for president in 2024, even if Fox News appears to be done with him. He’s a kingmaker, or at least he still thinks he is. But when it comes to endorsing a candidate for Missouri’s open Senate seat, he made a curious choice.
Trump’s had two Erics to choose from. There’s Eric Schmitt, the state’s sitting attorney general, who, like Trump, doesn’t think too kindly about Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Then there’s Eric Greitens, the state’s former governor, who resigned in disgrace, and came under fire for an ad in which he hunts down “RINOs,” or Republicans who are insufficiently Trumpy.
Which Eric would he pick? On Monday, he made his decision. And it appears to be…both of them?
Trump endorses “ERIC” without saying whether it’s Greitens or Schmitt. A truly bizarre ending to the battle of Erics. pic.twitter.com/FTIBWsZG5r
— Bryan Lowry (@BryanLowry3) August 1, 2022
“We need a person who will not back down to the Radical Left Lunatics who are destroying our Country,” Trump tweeted, as per The Kansas City Star. “I trust the Great People of Missouri, on this one, to make up their own minds, much as they did when they gave me landslide victories in the 2016 and 2020 Elections, and I am therefore proud to announce that ERIC has my Complete and Total Endorsement!”
Was it a typo? Or could Trump really not make a decision between two dodgy candidates? Or did he mean another Eric, like perhaps fellow mask skeptic (and onetime rock god) Eric Clapton? (Or one of his sons.) Whatever the case, it’s yet another outside-the-box move from a guy who may have buried his first ex-wife on a golf course so as to catch a tax break.
(Via Kansas City Star)