Donald Trump is recording the names of prominent conservatives who he believes is throwing him under the bus and is already thinking about retribution in case he is re-elected this November, according to a report in the Daily Beast.
Trump is suspicious that certain members of his party believes he will lose to Joe Biden. Aides around him are feeding his paranoia by recording media coverage of members of the Republican party criticizing him.
The Daily Beast reports that aides have bookmarked recent stories about Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell including the one where he said he avoided the White House for months due to their handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
A source with direct knowledge of Trump’s actions told The Daily Beast: “The president said something to the effect of: if you’re backing away from him now, don’t bother coming back for a favor when he wins. He made a comment about how there are some people out there who you can only count on when things are going your way.”
As Republicans start to face the harsh reality that the man they enabled for the past four years could lose his re-election bid in a “bloodbath” this fall, some have started to distance themselves from him.
This shift is not only seen on Capitol Hill. Some of his powerful allies like media mogul Rupert Murdoch said he believes that Trump will lose in a landslide to Joe Biden in two weeks. Murdoch is reportedly not pleased with Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Sources say Trump and Murdoch haven’t spoken to each other in weeks.
Officials are also starting to play the blame game in case Trump loses. Some are blaming Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner for the state of the campaign. Another source said:
“There is no question that [former campaign manager] Brad [Parscale] will take a large part of it because that is easy. But anyone with a brain who looks back at this will point to Jared [Kushner]. Jared can’t be both the mastermind and blameless.”
Read the full report on The Daily Beast.
