A very high-ranking Trump White House official once told me the key to the president’s behavior.
It happens when his advisors talk him into something that he doesn’t particularly want to do.
The next time he’s around reporters, this person says, will blurt out what he really thinks.
He’ll either walk it back, soften the language, create confusion or flatly contradict what he said a couple of days before. It’s his way of rebelling against being handled.
And, of course, he’ll lash out at who disagree with him, post insulting messages, or endorse their primary opponents.
To Trump, that’s just counterpunching.
After the House narrowly voted Wednesday to invoke the War Powers Act, to force an end to the , four Republicans â Thomas Massie, Warren Davidson, Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Barrett â broke with their party.
Trump’s Truth Social response:
“Yesterday, in a meaningless vote, the House voted, 4 bad Republicans and all of the Democrats, to limit my War Powers, right in the middle of my final negotiations to end the War with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Trump wrote. “Who would do such an unpatriotic thing? They know where the negotiations stand. The Democrats are fueled by Trump Derangement Syndrome. They would rather have our Country fail than give me another, of many, victories. The four Republicans, that’s a whole other story â They’re GRANDSTANDERS! They should be ashamed of themselves.”
And I’m sure there will be more to come.
Even if the 215-208 vote is followed by Senate approval, Trump can simply veto it. And there is a legal dispute about whether can actually undermine the commander-in-chief, given that presidents of both parties have waged undeclared wars.
An even sharper example involves the that triggered on-the-record outrage from Republicans as well as Democrats. The idea that the bulk of the money would go to the Jan. 6 rioters who beat up cops and threatened lawmakers struck a very deep chord among members who were in the Capitol on that dark and depressing day in 2021.
Trump could see this was a losing issue â or was persuaded of that â and after a leak that he was considering abandoning the project, he said it was dead. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said it was dead.
But the next time he saw reporters, he pried open the crypt door he had supposedly shut.
He absolutely unloaded on CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins for asking why he had changed his mind about what everyone was calling a â in other words, doing her job.
“So, I love it. I think it’s so important⦠What happened to great people, great American people, the way they were victimized, the way they were savaged, you have suicides, they killed themselves. They were bankrupt. They were weaponized by the Biden administration, by a bunch of thugs, including Obama people. And like nobody’s probably ever been. I mean, I can think of maybe two instances in this country where they’ve had it to somewhere [at] that extent. I’m not even sure if it was so much,” Trump said. “They were put in jail for long periods of time. They were accused of things that never happened. They had prosecutors that were radical lunatics, and their lives were destroyed. And frankly, we had a lawsuit that, against us on the weaponization where the judge, a radical left judge, ruled against it. And we’ll see how that all works out. But a radical left judge ruled against it.”
We’ll see how it all works out.
Is it dead?
“I’d have to ask the lawyers,” Trump said.
Uh, the lawyers work for him.
The president wasn’t done.
“But these people, their lives have been destroyed. Their families have been destroyed â many of them. I’m not just talking about a few people,” he said. “Many have been destroyed, many of them. I’m not just talking about a few people. Many of them. I’m one of them, I look, they raided my house, Mar-a-Lago. That never happened. Nobody ever thought of anythin
