President Donald Trump has continued today his series of attacks on Joe Scarborough, invoking the tragic death of a former staffer to smear the MSNBC host despite a heartfelt plea from the victim’s loved ones and increasing pressure on Twitter from Democrats and the press, including Mika Brzezinski.
But it is not only from the left.
CNN’s Jake Tapper tweeted on Tuesday that though “many in the GOP power structure and pro-Trump media who have lost loved ones in unspeakable ways” and that they “would be gutted” if a sitting president exploited that tragedy, they are sitting “silently” in the face of this onslaught.
There may be “many” who sit silently, but there also more public objections this time than has become the norm. What is rare is the President finding virtually no support from his own side, or at least no meaningful support. Whether silent on the topic or outright outraged, in general the right has left him standing by himself this time.
Here are some examples from the right, and/or right-leaning mainstream media outlets.
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The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro called Trump’s tweets “an onion of moral and intellectual imbecility.” Conservative website The Resurgent wrote that Trump’s comments are “indefensible.” Resurgent founder and editor Erick Erickson said that it’s “sad and pathetic that the President would resurrect a leftwing conspiracy and embrace it.”
National Review’s Charles Cooke, commenting on declining Trump poll numbers, said “It’s almost as if behaving absolutely reprehensibly in the middle of a serious crisis is unappealing” in a recent tweet, and Newsbusters managing editor Curtis Houck said “Trump should shut the hell up” about it.
Among Trump’s politician allies, too, there is dissent. Rep. Liz Cheney called on him to stop “causing pain.” And Illinois Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger, likewise pleaded for Trump to “just stop.”
“Completely unfounded conspiracy. Just stop. Stop spreading it, stop creating paranoia. It will destroy us,” Kinzinger wrote.