Trump Punches Down, Attacks 'Unattractive' Reporter Over Kushner Report Saying He Won't Help 2024 Bid

While Donald Trump as president largely validated my vote in both 2016 and 2020, he’s also exasperated me — and countless other former supporters — with his inability to refrain from unforced errors.

Among those errors is his apparent powerlessness to stop punching down, and even worse, his personal attacks and sophomoric name-calling of those he doesn’t like or by whom he feels threatened.

It’s almost as if Trump believes his ill-advised antics demonstrate strength when in reality they demonstrate the opposite — to the point of costing him support — as is the case with everything he does, which must always be the “biggest,” “best,” “first,” “most successful,” and most “loved” by everyone who supports him.

The latest episode began, as I reported on Christmas Eve, with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner reportedly saying he’s “really out” and won’t help his father-in-law’s 2024 presidential campaign. In response, Trump told New York Magazine reporter Olivia Nuzzi that despite the notable absence of Jared and his wife Ivanka from the former president’s 2024 launch, his entire family is “100 percent” behind him.

Apparently unhappy with Nuzzi’s reporting that Trump is largely holed up at his Mar-a-Lago resort — she also quoted an insider as saying “the magic is gone” — he fired up Truth Social to go off on Nuzzi, as reported by The New York Post. Rather than simply denying the content of Nuzzi’s reporting, Trump attacked her personal appearance and of course, the “failing” New York Magazine — and then some.

The Fake & Corrupt News is only getting worse! As an example, I agreed to do a short telephone interview for a once very good, but now on its “last legs” and failing, New York Magazine. The reporter was a shaky & unattractive wack job, known as “tough” but dumb as a rock, who actually wrote a decent story about me a long time ago. Her name, Olivia Nuzzi. Anyway, the story was Fake News, her “anonymous sources” don’t exist (true with many writers), and I’m happily fighting hard for our GREAT USA!

Translation: When a reporter writes a “decent” story about Trump, she’s fine. But when she writes a story he doesn’t like, she’s a dumb-as-a-rock unattractive wack job who writes fake news.

Here we go again, sports fans. pic.twitter.com/Q7amSW9dR1

— MikesRight (@RealLibSmacker) December 27, 2022

In a second post to Truth Social, Trump claimed he “specifically asked” both Jared and Ivanka not to help with his 2024 campaign:

Contrary to Fake News reporting, I never asked Jared or Ivanka to be part of the 2024 Campaign for President and, in fact, specifically asked them not to do it – too mean and nasty with the Fake & Corrupt News and having to deal with some absolutely horrendous SleazeBags in the world of politics, and beyond. There has never been anything like this “ride” before, and they should not be further subjected to it. I ran twice, getting millions more Votes the second time (RIGGED), & am doing it again!

Burn me at the stake (figuratively speaking, of course), as some of you might wish but Trump’s worn-out shtick isn’t selling, anymore — at least not nearly to the degree he thinks it is. The truth is it’s Nixonian as hell and it’s costing him support, not building it.

Trump claims he "specifically asked" Jared and Ivanka not to help his 2024 campaign. I report, you decide. pic.twitter.com/246scL9347

— MikesRight (@RealLibSmacker) December 28, 2022

Not to pile on [sarc], but Nuzzi tweeted an image late Monday of Trump staring into a solar eclipse at the White House in 2017 without wearing proper eye protection.