Eleven months ago, he endorsed Rep. Mo Brooks for the Alabama US Senate seat being vacated by Republican Sen. Richard Shelby.
The intervening months have suggested that Brooks is well on his way to doing just that.
Perhaps more importantly for Trump, Brooks — who had aggressively pushed the false idea that the 2020 election was somehow stolen — is, in the former President’s mind, softening on the issue.
Add it all up, and Trump is beginning to look for an exit strategy.
“While Trump has been seething over Brooks’ lackluster campaign performance for several months now, four people familiar with the situation told CNN that he has reached his breaking point and is weighing when and how he might pursue a course correction in the contentious Republican primary. …”
Trump then is trying to frame his second thoughts on Brooks as a disagreement on principle. (“[W]hen you endorse somebody, you endorse somebody based on principle,” he told the Examiner. “If he changed that principle, I would have no problem doing that.”)
But that’s not really what’s going on here. Remember the first rule of Trump: Always be a winner. And its corollary: Always associate yourself with winners.
Brooks looked like a sure-fire winner nearly a year ago when Trump endorsed him. He’s shown himself to be a mediocre candidate with much less of a chance of winning since then.
So Trump wants off the boat. Because that’s what he does.
The Point: Loyalty is a one-way street for Trump. He will be loyal to you as long as it’s good for him. And not one second longer. Sorry, Congressman.
