Angry Post-Election Trump Is Having Buyer's Remorse

Caricature by DonkeyHotey flic.kr/p/Ct4G4K https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

We knew this without even being told.

According to CNN, Trump felt the sting of Luther Strange’s loss in Alabama on Tuesday night, and he was NOT happy.

I briefly touched on Trump’s losing horse earlier today, but this is a new layer. As I said earlier, Trump likes passing off the illusion of being a “winner,” and then he lost.

Advertisement

He’s apparently fuming, and blaming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for tricking him into supporting a candidate he considered to be “low energy.”

There’s that term again.

CNN laid out the scene this way:

Returning from a high-dollar fundraiser in Manhattan on Tuesday evening, an infuriated President Donald Trump watched aboard Air Force One as Fox News called the Alabama Senate primary for Roy Moore against Trump’s favored candidate, Luther Strange.

What ensued was a barrage of angry venting at his political team and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who had consolidated establishment GOP support behind Strange.

Trump, officials and informal advisers say, felt misled by McConnell and his political team, who encouraged him to endorse and campaign for Strange.

The president was already having a bit of buyer’s remorse, saying last week that he may have made a mistake in backing Strange. He thought it made him look weak.

He also felt the burn of having his former chief strategist backing the competition.

Strange’s brief time keeping Jeff Sessions’ old seat warm proved him to be loyal to Trump, so Trump felt he owed him.

Trump “knew it was a mistake but one he was willing to make because Luther was loyal,” said a senior White House official.

He went to bed “embarrassed and pissed” following the election loss, according to a person familiar with his mindset. Trump, multiple sources said, was furious with McConnell — with whom he has openly feuded — and feels outdone by his former aide Bannon.

Advertisement

And it didn’t stop there.

Inside the White House, fingers are being pointed at Ward Baker, a McConnell strategist, and Nick Ayers, the vice president’s chief of staff, both of whom were involved in pushing Trump to back Strange, according to sources.

The vice president’s office denied that Ayers pushed Trump to endorse Strange.

“Losing is bad for his brand,” another GOP adviser to the White House said of Trump.

See? I told you guys.

And of course, he’s deleted a lot of his tweets supporting Luther Strange, pretending they didn’t exist, but we know.

Kellyanne Conway did the morning TV thing, in order to smooth over any notion that her boss was upset.

“The result was not unexpected, and even though polls are often wrong, the result was not unexpected,” Conway said.

She cast Tuesday’s vote as a validation of Trump’s agenda and strategy, rather than a repudiation of the person he’d endorsed. And she said other Republican senators who have supported Trump’s agenda can expect similar shows of support from the President.

Wait… it was his strategy to lose?

Yeah, ok.

We’re back to 67th dimensional chess, I see.

 

Recommended

Join the conversation as a VIP Member

Trending on RedState Videos