They come cheap.
Republicans, that is. From Politico's Burgess Everett and Josh Dawsey, in late October:
Once upon a time, Lindsey Graham called Donald Trump a "jackass." Never to be outdone in the put-down department, Trump labeled the South Carolina senator a "lightweight" and an "idiot" who “seems to me not as bright as Rick Perry.”
Two years after that campaign smackdown, Trump and Graham act like longtime friends, hitting the links and plotting legislative strategy together. The two have formed a surprising kinship even as Graham's best friend, John McCain, is chilly toward a president who once mocked his capture in Vietnam.
In a sign of the dramatic turn in their relationship, during a flight back from South Carolina last week, the president turned to the South Carolina senator and asked if he’d like to take a helicopter back to the White House with him, offering Graham a guided tour.
“How can you not like that?” Graham said in a lengthy interview. “I mean I grew up in the back of a liquor store, first in my family to go to college. I never thought I’d be on Marine One with the president.”
Everett/Dawsey added
How long this will last is anyone's guess: Graham is known as one of the more blunt-spoken senators, and it might just be a matter of time before he whacks the president and Trump hits back.
It has lasted 61 days and counting, with Graham never giving a second's thought to voting against a tax bill set to make Donald Trump millions and his family billions.
One can only hope Sarah Kendzior is right when she hypothesizes that when Russians hacked the RNC email server, they uncovered something about the South Carolinian's sexuality, rumored to be the second or third letter in LGBT. Otherwise, there is no backbone, which goes a ways toward explaining the votes for Trump's judicial nominees and tax plan among members of Congress he has ridiculed and worse.
It's not only men, though. Talking Points Memo links to an item about Mitt Romney's niece, in which
WaPo notes a specific request from Trump earlier this year for McDaniel to stop using her maiden name publicly as she took over as RNC Chair. Advisers said the request happened when Trump told others that mention of the name Romney “often prompted boos at his events.”
A senior Trump administration official and adviser told WaPo the President was “pleased” when McDaniel mostly stopped using the Romney moniker.
McDaniel’s maiden name drop is just one piece of the puzzle in the strife between Trump and Mitt Romney.
There is some reason that Ronna Romney McDaniel, daughter of a governor and niece of a governor, kept her maiden name (as her middle name) when she got married. Then all it took was a request from a dangerous, narcissistic, egomaniacal misogynist to get her to drop it.
Kendzior remarked “Trump has berated them, he has insulted them. He’s often gone after their wives and their family members, saying terrible things and yet they prostrate themselves to him. What kind of leader are you? What kind of man are you?” And as for Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Deb Fischer, Joni Ernst and Republican women of the House of Representatives: what kind of leader or woman are you?
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