In Trump in Exile, her new book on the former president’s time out of power, Meridith McGraw of Politico reminds us of Trump’s limited vetting skills, as well as his antipathy toward Florida’s
Ron DeSantis, and his cravings for cash. Oh – and his fetish for being tanned.
“Trump was still getting bronzed and ready for the day when a group of reporters joined him aboard his private jet,” McGraw writes.
McGraw travels back to 2021, when Trump’s future looked murky. Out of power, after defeat by
Joe Biden and the
January 6 attack on Congress, he seethed, yearning for vengeance and relevance. Most of all, he needed to be needed. In a storm, any port will do – Trump seized onto Kevin McCarthy, then the House speaker.
In September 2021, Trump backed Sean Parnell, a former army ranger, for senator in Pennsylvania. Trump
expected Parnell to “fight for Election Integrity, Strong Borders, our Second Amendment, Energy Jobs, and so much more.” It never happened.
Right before Thanksgiving, Parnell dropped out. A state court granted his wife primary custody of their three children. Allegedly, he was abusive. Trump felt blindsided. Predictably, the buck stopped elsewhere. He “blamed his son for encouraging him to make the endorsement”, McGraw writes.
“Parnell’s ugly custody battle laid bare the concerns from top Republican officials about the vigor of Trump’s vetting process and whether he was backing people who might not be able to win in a general election.” In the end, Trump’s missteps paved the way for the election of
Josh Shapiro as Pennsylvania’s governor.
Fast forward to August 2024. Trump’s chosen running mate once compared him to Hitler. Vance once said he “hated” police. He held
a six-figure investment in Rumble, an online video platform that hosts Russian propaganda and Nazi images. (lol)
“You are one handsome son of a bitch”, McGraw reports Trump telling Vance in 2022.
“One criterion with outsized importance to Trump was physical looks and being telegenic, two things he would frequently tell people he liked in Vance.” (weird)
Trump’s lack of vetting skills were again on display. Even he seems to have realized it. Last week,
as Vance flailed, Trump
said: “This is well-documented, historically, the vice-president in terms of the election does not have any impact, virtually no impact.”
Translated: if he had to do it again, it wouldn’t be Vance.
By contrast, Trump’s takedown of DeSantis, Florida’s martinet-lite governor, was masterful. After grudgingly endorsing DeSantis for re-election in 2022, Trump prepared his evisceration. Trump minions branded the socially awkward and self-righteous DeSantis as strange, a misfit.
“Ron DeSanctimonious” would also come to be remembered as governor “pudding fingers”, after an ad depicting him snarfing chocolate pudding, sans spoon.
"Ron DeSantis loves sticking his fingers where they don’t belong,” the ad began. It helped suck the life out of his campaign.
It was all about ridicule.
“When discussing their strategy, one Trump adviser referred to Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals,” an influential 1971 book. Trump’s staffers focused on “Rule number five: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. There is no defense. It is almost impossible to counter-attack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage.”
The pudding ad was both “disgusting and clever”, its goal “to get under DeSantis’s skin and start signaling to the public that he was, well, strange”.
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