On Saturday, some two-and-a-half months after announcing his third presidential campaign, Donald Trump finally sprang into action. His first event was held at [checks notes] a high school auditorium. His second, at the Capitol in South Carolina, wasn’t much bigger. But during the day, as per Mediaite, he managed to do one of his favorite tactics: trash his perceived enemies.
Trump on Desantis: “Ron would’ve not been governor if it wasn’t for me. Number 1, he wouldn’t have gotten the nomination, and number 2 – he wouldn’t have beaten his Democrat opponent. So then when I hear he might run, I consider that very disloyal.” pic.twitter.com/11r2k3b6z0
— Ron Filipkowski
(@RonFilipkowski) January 29, 2023
One of them was Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor and Trump clone, who hasn’t formally thrown his hat in the ring but is expected to. “Ron would have not been governor if it wasn’t for me, and that’s okay,” Trump told reporters on his private plane. “Number one, he wouldn’t have gotten the nomination. Number two, he wouldn’t have beaten his Democrat opponent. So when I hear that he might run, I consider that very disloyal. But it’s not about loyalty, but to me it is. It’s always about loyalty.”
It was a classic fit of Trump word salad, filled with contradictions and passive aggression that’s not so passive.
Trump was a little nicer when speaking about Nikki Haley, South Carolina’s former governor. “I talked to her for a little while,” Trump explained. “But I said ‘Look, go by your heart, if you wanna run.’ She’s publicly said, ‘I would never run against my president. He was a great president.”
As it happened the same day as Trump belatedly did campaign stops, Haley, as per Newsweek, released a video in which she effectively urged Trump to step aside.
“And when you’re looking at the future of America, I think it’s time for new generational change. I don’t think you need to be 80 years old to go be a leader in D.C.,” Haley said in the video. “I think we need a young generation to come in, step up, and really start fixing things.”
Well, if this whole third presidential campaign doesn’t work out, Trump can always go back to fiddling with the rules of a golf tournament so he wins.