It must be something to be the president of the United States and have taxpayers bankrolling you while you hang out at your own golf club and tweet about someone you hate.
But that’s Donald Trump!
Facing increasing evidence of corruption that would’ve landed any other president in jail by now, Trump is still hanging onto the presidency, as belligerently as ever. On Saturday, Trump spent much of his day at the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, VA, rage-tweeting about the Republican senator from Utah, Mitt Romney, who has been a frequent target of Trump’s ire.
It’s not because Romney has said anything that dramatic about Trump. The senator’s comments to date actually have been pretty tame, given the seriousness of Trump’s alleged crimes. But Trump can’t stand “disloyal” people, and Romney has the nerve to speak out against the president, in whatever form, while an impeachment inquiry is underway. That clearly triggers the president, especially since not many other Republicans have found their own spines.
In the latest exchange, Romney made a couple short statements on Twitter on Friday reacting to Trump’s recent comments about using China to target former Vice President Joe Biden for investigation.
“When the only American citizen President Trump singles out for China’s investigation is his political opponent in the midst of the Democratic nomination process, it strains credulity to suggest that it is anything other than politically motivated,” Romney tweeted.
“Strains credulity” is a polite way of saying it’s bullshit, which was highlighted on Friday by CNBC White House correspondent Eamon Javers, who asked Trump to name other people the White House had asked foreign countries to investigate who aren’t his political opponents.
“We would have to look,” Trump responded, giving away the game.
“By all appearances, the President’s brazen and unprecedented appeal to China and to Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden is wrong and appalling,” Romney correctly concluded.
Trump, however, wasn’t afraid to fire back with stronger language. On Saturday, he called Romney a “pompous ‘ass.’” I’m not sure why he wrote “ass” in quotation marks, but maybe someone can explain that to me.
Prior to that tweet, Trump had repeated that his phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was “very appropriate.”
“Somebody please wake up Mitt Romney and tell him that my conversation with the Ukrainian President was a congenial and very appropriate one, and my statement on China pertained to corruption, not politics. If Mitt worked this hard on Obama, he could have won. Sadly, he choked!” Trump tweeted.
Trump told additional lies about the July 25 phone call at the center of the impeachment inquiry. A whistleblower’s account of Trump’s phone call is “way off” and “not even close,” Trump claimed.
The president also strangely stated that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff “never thought I would release the transcript of the call.”
“Got them by surprise, they got caught,” Trump tweeted.
Boy, you really showed them, Donnie!! Now do Putin.
“This is a fraud against the American people!” Trump continued, in what might be the perfect time for someone at the White House to remind him that the description of the phone call—that he released—actually incriminates him.
Trump spent the rest of his Saturday rage-tweeting more about Romney and sharing bad video clips from Fox News. He returned to the White House later in the day, looking, well, a bit disheveled.