For someone who “only hires the best,” Donald Trump regularly finds himself at odds with the people he personally hired into his inner circle.
This week, it seems that person is his own former press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, who the former president has now decided is a full-fledged “RINO,” because she dared to say something I wouldn’t even consider “good,” but halfway decent about his Democratic 2024 opponent, incumbent President Joe Biden.
McEnany, who now serves as a Fox News host following her tenure as a Trump Administration official, did her job last night when she convened with a panel of her fellow Fox hosts to discuss the results of the crucial New Hampshire primaries.
Mediate reported the following transcript from the panel discussion:
BRET BAIER: Kayleigh. You know, in the close, it seemed like the Trump campaign was pretty disciplined. They hit the immigration issue a lot at his rallies. And we saw his pitch at the town hall and the speech in Iowa.
This was a different speech. You know, he is a fighter. He punches back. He obviously didn’t like the speech he heard from Nikki Haley.
But he’s also, at some point has to get into general election, going after independents and maybe disaffected Democrats. And this speech probably wasn’t that.
KAYLEIGH MCENANY: No, this speech was a speech to dispose of the last remaining competitor, if you could call it that. She still significantly behind him. He’s pulling a majority support.
But to get her out of the race, I would suggest that adopting a general election tone is what you do at this point. And here’s why I say this.
This was actually a fairly good night for Joe Biden. When you look at our voter analysis, only 10% said “I would not vote for Joe Biden if he’s the nominee.”.
He won a plurality of voters who said he was too old. He won a majority of voters who are upset about the Gaza war. So the divides in the Democrat Party, and this is a small sample size, but perhaps aren’t as stark as one would think.
But when you look at the Republican Party, 7 in 10 Nikki Haley voters said “I would not vote for Trump.”.
There was a Des Moines Register poll. 43% said, no, I wouldn’t vote for Trump.
If I’m Trump, I sit back and I exclusively focus on the general election. I take the posture of a presumptive nominee. I focus on number one, uniting the party and number two, winning the independents, which Nikki Haley won 55 to 39%. That’s what I would do.
Nikki Haley I mean, the closest margin is 30% in the States ahead. For all intents and purposes, he’s the presumptive nominee.
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Trump, of course, already has a rather troubled relationship with the right-wing network as they’ve distanced themselves from the Big Lie following several big lawsuits, and the fact that one of his own people said this out loud on a network segment didn’t help anything.
Suffice it to say, the former president had a truly visceral reaction, taking to his Truth Social platform and fuming, “I don’t need any advice from RINO Kayleigh McEnany on Fox. Just had a GIANT VICTORY over a badly failing candidate, ‘Birdbrain,’ and she’s telling me what I can do better. Save your advice for Nikki!”
Trump is notorious for calling any Republican who doesn’t bow down to him a “RINO” — which stands for “Republican in name only.”
The scandal-ridden ex-president doubled down in a follow-up, all-caps Truth Social post: “CNN & MSDNC TREATED MY BIG, DOUBLE DIGIT VICTORY OVER BIRDBRAIN, BETTER THAN FOX!”
Donald Trump is losing his own people and he’s not coping well with that fact.
See the Fox clip here:
Kayleigh McEnany: When you look at the Republican Party, 7 out of 10 Haley voters said they wouldn’t vote for Trump. pic.twitter.com/AZSYLqlb0H
— Victoria Brownworth (@VABVOX) January 24, 2024
Featured image via Flickr/Gage Skidmore, under Creative Commons license 2.0
