Scandal-ridden former President Trump has finally officially made his formal 2024 presidential campaign launch in the form of a big, glitzy announcement at his equally scandal-ridden Mar-a-Lago country club turned post-White House personal residence.
However, the announcement that we all knew was coming didn’t actually serve to help Trump’s case, amid the mounting legal scandal and peril he’s found himself in since the moment he was booted from office in 2020, and effectively lost the protective shield offered by the US presidency. In fact, it has seemed to have quite the opposite effect for the former guy.
The man who was once considered the de facto leader of the Republican Party, the kingmaker of the GOP, has experienced a massive wave of lost support and abandonment since the moment his 2024 announcement dropped.
At every turn now, it seems more and more donors, key Republican figures, and even members of the devout evangelical crowd begin to publicly turn their back on the scandal-ridden former president as he drowns in legal peril that even a presidential campaign announcement can’t save him from.
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And frankly, there are no signs that the bleeding will stop anytime soon.
One of Trump’s most devout MAGA loyalists has now turned on him, formally announcing to the country and the Republican party that he will not be endorsing or supporting the former president’s third consecutive White House run, due to Donald Trump’s lack of “loyalty.”
Former Republican House Rep. Lou Barletta was one of the first people to throw their support whole-heartedly into Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, going so far as to co-chair Trump’s 2016 campaign in Barletta’s state of Pennsylvania.
But as of this week, Barletta is done.
On Sunday, the former House Rep. gave remarks to POLITICO, in which he publicly cut all ties with the former president and de facto leader of the GOP, declaring, “I’m not supporting him. I was one of his most loyal supporters in Congress. But loyalty was only a one-way street.”
Barletta’s comments about Trump’s loyalties aren’t hyperbole. The now-former House rep. vied hard for Trump’s endorsement in the Pennsylvania GOP gubernatorial primary earlier this year. The ex-president blatantly betrayed him when Trump went with far-right Doug Mastriano, who funnily enough, was one of the many Trump-endorsed candidates to lose their race to their Democratic opponents, with Mastriano losing to Democrat Josh Shapiro in the general election.
The former House rep. made a similar announcement earlier this year during his campaign trail, when he lashed out at Trump for shamelessly turning his back on him, despite Barletta’s long-standing support for the now-former president:
President Trump got it wrong. I’m going to prove it tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/8qfjcUPACb
— Lou Barletta (@RepLouBarletta) May 17, 2022
Republican Pennsylvania Congressman Tom Marino weighed in with similar sentiment, demanding, “Where in the hell is the loyalty?!”
“Lou and I were the first congressmen to come out and endorse Trump in his first election. We took a lot of heat about it,” Marino said. “I’m very disappointed in the former president. Because apparently, the loyalty does not go as far as he says.”
Frankly, Donald Trump has made his bed — now he gets to lie in it.
Featured image via Flickr/Gage Skidmore, under Creative Commons license 2.0
