“I’m Speak Out”: Inside Donald Trump’s Ferocious Mind Two Months After Leaving the White House

“Nobody has ever been through what I have,” Trump added. “They made me about all the fake stuff.”

Trump finds fault with most of his fellow Republican leaders, past and present. Clearly still resentful by the ghost of the late Arizona senator John McCain, Trump without prompting brought up the party’s 2008 presidential candidate, whom he had attacked for years.

“John McCain was a bad guy,” he said of the decorated POW. “He was a bully and a nasty, bad guy. A lot of people don’t like him. Last in his class in Annapolis. All that stuff, but he’s a bad guy. I say that to you. I do not care. Does it affect me? I won Arizona, okay? By a lot. It didn’t turn out so in terms of votes, but I won Arizona. Everyone knows that. He doesn’t affect me. I won the first time. I won it for the second time”.

Trump, who has in fact lost Arizona to Biden, continues with this fix. “You know, I’ve done three rallies in Arizona,” he said. “I’ve never had an empty seat.” Governor Doug Ducey, who has come under pressure from Trump to overturn the outcome, “is not a staunch member of the party,” according to the former president. “I think Ducey is a terrible Republican,” he said. “Ducey did everything to prevent voter integrity, to prevent people from making sure the vote was correct.”

Trump also complained about former House Speaker Paul Ryan, whom he labeled a “super RINO”—Only in the name of the Republican Party. And he said Mitch McConnell “has neither personality” nor murderous political instincts. He faulted McConnell for refusing to remove opposition through Republican legislation and for failing to convince Senator Joe Manchin, a moderate Democrat from West Virginia, to switch parties.

“He’s a fool,” Trump said of McConnell. “I don’t think he’s smart enough.”

“I was trying to convince Mitch McConnell to take the bluff, stop it, let us have everything, and he was a jerk and he didn’t do it,” Trump said.

Trump says he wishes he had congressional partners like Meade Esposito, who headed the Democratic Party in Brooklyn from the late 1960s to early 1980s. Esposito, who is close to Trump and his father too His great-grandfather, Fred Trump, is known for his patronage and command.

“No one can repeat Meade Esposito. Meade Esposito doesn’t have a RINO like Mitt Romney, you know, or like I said, the underweight Ben Sasse,” Trump said, calling on two Republican senators, who sometimes criticize him. He added, “Mitch McConnell compared to Meade Esposito, it’s like a kid versus a grown-up football player with a brain ahead of everything else.”

Esposito ran a citywide patronage system that gave important jobs to loyalists and those who provided gifts and incentives. The boss of the party has gained a fearsome reputation for his intimidation tactics and connections to organized crime. While investigating his work, Esposito retired in 1983; he was sentenced provided a bonus and interstate travel fee in 1987.

Other presidents engage in philanthropy, write memoirs, and manage the presidential library after leaving office. But not Trump. His many days in Palm Beach have followed the pace and style he set while in Washington, reflecting his addiction to the twenty-four-hour news cycle and desire to remain relevant. politic. In the morning, he spends time alone in his private quarters watching TV and making phone calls to allies and friends. Many days he plays a round of golf at one of his nearby clubs. And in the afternoons, he puts on a suit, puts on makeup, and appears to attend meetings with any politicians or celebrities who have made the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago. In early 2021, Trump turned his club into a political base for his potential return.

Trump has made no secret of his interest in perhaps running for president in 2024. Would he choose Pence again as his running mate?

“Well, I’m disappointed in Mike,” Trump said. “But, you know, I will make a decision at some point. I’ll say this: Based on the polls, those polls are great, Republicans love Trump. Ninety-seven percent! “

When we pointed out that Pence was reportedly also interested in running for president, Trump seemed to welcome the competition. “It’s a free country, isn’t it?” he say. “It’s a free country.”

But Trump has ruled out all running with Chris Christie, who finished second to Pence in his 2016 win, and Nikki Haley, a former ambassador to the United Nations who has criticized Trump’s efforts. aimed at subverting the vote in repeat interviews Politico’s Alberta Heart.

“Chris has been very disloyal, but that’s okay,” Trump said. “I have helped Chris Christie a lot. He knows it better than anyone, but I helped him a lot. But he is not loyal. “

As for his former ambassador, Trump said he was denying her access. “Nikki Haley wanted to come here terribly,” he said. “She made a few slightly offensive statements… She was killed by the group. When they say bad things about me, that party is not happy about it. It’s pretty awesome. There isn’t anything like this. “

Over the years, Trump has rarely expressed doubt. But he regrets his response to protests last summer in Minneapolis, Portland, Seattle and other cities. “I thought if I did it again, I would join the army immediately,” he said.

Trump has no such second thoughts about his handling of the pandemic. He said he had been “very tough” in protecting the country by restricting travel, first from China and then from Europe. He said he did so against the wishes of his top medical advisers; In fact, most of them agreed to the restrictions before he made his decision, according to participants in the discussion and their contemporaries. But he correctly said that he pushed scientists at the FDA “to a degree they have never been driven before” to get a vaccine approved in record time.

“I think we’ve done a great job on COVID and it hasn’t been recognised,” Trump said, noting that other countries have seen spikes in the number of COVID-19 cases in recent years. months after he left office. “The cabinets are empty. We don’t have robes. We don’t have masks. We don’t have a ventilator. We don’t have anything… We brought the goods on the plane. We did a great job.”

When we asked Trump why he encouraged people to believe things that weren’t true or distrust science and the media, he was happy to talk about the scientific intelligence in the family’s genes. myself.

“First of all, I am a great person,” he said. “Do you know this? My uncle, Dr. John Trump, I think he was in [the Massachusetts Institute of Technology] longer than any other professor. Absolutely a wonderful man. He has many degrees. So it’s in the genes. I always go with those. But it’s a bit in the genes and Dr. John Trump, he’s a great man. My father’s brother. No, I strongly believe in science. If I didn’t, you wouldn’t have the vaccine. It depends. Are you talking about misinformation or are you talking about lies? There is a nicer word called misinformation.”