Senator Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Leader, appears to be trying to make the best of a bad situation. The Washington Post reports that he says he is supporting Trump because “…[He] doesn’t want four more years just like the last eight”. In another interview published by The Hill, he says that Trump will not fundamentally change the Republican Party. He says that the Republican Party “…is America’s right-of-center party. If he brings in new followers, that’s great, and well worth the effort, but he will not change the Republican Party”. He says that it is much more likely that the Republican Party will change Trump than vice versa.
We shall see about that.
Meanwhile in an interview with NPR McConnell says that people voting for Trump should take comfort in his list of “right-of-center, well qualified” potential nominees to the Supreme Court, although in a separate interview McConnell that he would like “to see a more thoughtful Trump”.
Well it would be hard to get a less thoughtful Trump, but it’s still wishful thinking. Consider that not too long after he released his list of potential Supreme Court nominees—a bad idea all by itself—Trump went on to attack a sitting judge. And Trump was not using the judge to make some abstract point about judicial philosophy. He launched a personal attack against a judge who is currently presiding over a case in which Trump is a defendant.
Among Trump’s more subtle complaints is that the Judge, appointed by President Obama, is hostile and biased, and has treated Trump unfairly because the judge is “a Trump hater”. Trump’s evidence of bias: The judge has ruled against him. And to cap it off, Trump attacked the judge over his ethnicity. Said Trump (sic) “The judge, who happens to be, we believe, Mexican, which is great, I think that’s fine,” Trump said according to the LA Times. “You know what? I think the Mexicans are going to end up loving Donald Trump when I give all these jobs, OK?”
By the way, the judge, who is of Mexican extraction, was born in Indiana.
Trump supporters like to think that their guy “Tells it like it is”. Leaving that absurdity aside, they should ponder this: If any one else personally, publicly and repeatedly attacked a sitting judge before whom they had a case, they would likely find themselves held in contempt, which is where Trump deserves to be held by all.
JFB
