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After the GOP debate, Don from New Orleans called my SiriusXM program to say, well….a whole bunch of stuff.
And really, it was a sort of wacky and meandering six minutes, though interesting and not heated, unlike what almost always happens with Trumpers.
Just about every question I asked was like giving him some more rope and letting him hang himself.
Don eventually claimed that he is suspicious of everyone who goes into politics as a career, versus those without political experience. That’s why he thought Vivek Ramaswamy won the debate, he said, because he’s an "outsider" and thus isn’t power hungry (like Trump). I know you’re probably laughing hard about that one. Don explained why:
I'm a local elected official. Okay. Very local. Elected official. Um. And I am very skeptical of anybody who spends a lifetime in politics.
So, the argument he’s making, I said, is that there’s something sinister about someone who made politics their life. But, I asked, there’s nothing sinister about someone who achieved wealth and fame, like Donald Trump, and then used that to get into the White House and grab power?
He responded by saying, "by the way, I’m enjoying this conversation"—which I don’t think was true—and then went on:
The way I look at it is, if you've been in politics and you've worked your way up and you've spent all of this time in the Congress, the state legislature, the federal legislature, and the executive branches, you've become so accustomed to power. You're more concerned with keeping that job and keeping that power than just doing the job.
“Come on Don,” I responded, then rhetorically asking, "Trump was not obsessed with power? And keeping power?" explaining to him that he was completely undoing his own argument.
"He helped other powerful people,” I went on. “How many people did he pardon? They did a lot of sleazy things, didn't they? Terrible things. Even the guy who was governor of Illinois, what a terrible thing he did. He sold a Senate seat to somebody. Right. Wasn't that terrible that Donald Trump used his power to pardon that guy, Rod Blagojevich?"
Don responded that, it’s "not right," and then added, "they all do it." Which again, completely undermined his case. Listen in and let me know your thoughts.
MAGA man claims having no political experience, like Trump, is better