According to a new bombshell report from the New York Times‘ Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Martin, one of the crucial, key talking points that the Republican Party and many GOPers who are facing an election this year were holding tight to in an effort to secure their spot come November has now blown up in their faces thanks to Donald Trump — and evidently, they’re fuming about it.
Apparently, key GOPers were planning to use China as the key to their reelection this year — ultimately intending to blame the pandemic on the country and link Democratic nominee Joe Biden to China in the process.
However, the report claims that Republicans are now unhappily scrambling to rework their plan, terrifyingly close to the election now, due to Trump’s unreliability on the topic and inability to “stay on message.”
“The strategy could not be clearer: From the Republican lawmakers blanketing Fox News to new ads from President Trump’s super PAC to the biting criticism on Donald Trump Jr.’s Twitter feed, the G.O.P. is attempting to divert attention from the administration’s heavily criticized response to the coronavirus by pinning the blame on China,” the Times report reads.
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“Republican senators locked in difficult races are preparing commercials condemning China. Conservatives with future presidential ambitions of their own, like Senators Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley, are competing to see who can talk tougher toward the country where the virus first emerged. Party officials are publicly and privately brandishing polling data in hopes Mr. Trump will confront Beijing.”
It seems as though Trump’s self-serving plan to cut a trade deal with China is really cutting into his party’s ability to build their reelection platform against the country.
“Eager to continue trade talks, uneasy about further rattling the markets and hungry to protect his relationship with President Xi Jinping at a moment when the United States is relying on China’s manufacturers for lifesaving medical supplies, Mr. Trump has repeatedly muddied Republican efforts to fault China,” the report continues. “Even as the president tries to rebut criticism of his slow response to the outbreak by highlighting his January travel restrictions on China, he has repeatedly called Mr. Xi a friend and said ‘we are dealing in good faith’ with the repressive government. He also dropped his periodic references to the disease as ‘the China virus’ after a telephone call with Mr. Xi.”
The report goes on to note that Republican heads are spinning a bit as Trump continues to fume at China behind closed doors, giving them hope for their key talking point, only to turn around and sing the country’s praises in public, ultimately leaving them to look as though they’re detracting from the president in the public’s eye should they adhere to their plan.
“On Tuesday, at his daily briefing, Mr. Trump was candid about the transactional rationale behind his stance toward China,” the Times report notes. “Pressed on how he could criticize the World Health Organization for what he called pushing ‘China’s misinformation,’ after he had also lavished praise on Beijing’s purported transparency, he responded, ‘Well, I did a trade deal with China, where China is supposed to be spending $250 billion in our country.'”
“Mr. Trump’s clashing comments on China illustrate not only his unreliability as a political messenger but also his longstanding ambivalence over how to approach the world’s second-largest economy. He ran for president four years ago vowing to get tough with China, but his ambition was not to isolate the Chinese but to work with them — and especially for the United States to make more money from the relationship,” it continues. “This goal has prompted him to often lavish flattery on Mr. Xi, most memorably when Mr. Trump rhapsodized about the way they bonded over “the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake you’ve ever seen” at his Mar-a-Lago resort in 2017.”
Even Republican Senator Kevin Cramer admitted that Trump’s back and forth rhetoric is becoming a real issue, with the report stating that Cramer “said Democrats were courting political risk if they were seen as defending China. But he conceded that Mr. Trump’s ‘rhetoric about Xi gets confusing.'”
Adding, “I’d have a hard time being that nice to a communist leader but the president knows he’s got to appeal to an audience of one there.”
You can read the full report here.
Featured image via Political Tribune gallery
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