GOP will 'have only themselves to blame' by nominating 'weak' and 'inept' Trump: Bloomberg

After former President Donald Trump's victory in New Hampshire on Tuesday night, his status as the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee has been effectively secured. And as Bloomberg's editorial board argues, that is to the GOP's detriment.

The publication wrote on Wednesday morning that Trump's last remaining rival, Nikki Haley, had a solid resume for a presidential candidate as a former businesswoman, state lawmaker, two-term governor, and UN ambassador. Editors viewed her as the GOP's best ability to get conservative policies enacted, in contrast with Trump, whose record has shown him to be what they view as an ineffective and incompetent leader who is only interested in keeping himself out of prison.

"Republicans must by now realize that nominating Trump will not advance their interests. In addition to the disorder, ineptitude and ambient corruption that characterized his first term, Trump was the weakest president since the New Deal," Bloomberg's editorial board argued. "Outmaneuvered at every turn, he caved repeatedly to Democrats, ran up huge deficits and accomplished nearly no policy goals. He couldn’t even build his border wall, the notional premise of his campaign."

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Editors wrote that a second Trump term "promises more of the same, but worse."

"Trump’s rallies this time around have been uniformly dreary affairs, all menace and grievance and simmering paranoia. He occasionally feigns interest in the proposals his associates have cobbled together — more tariffs, more oil, more drama — but let’s be honest: Trump is facing 91 felony charges and counting. He is being sued by dozens of interested parties. He has appropriated the GOP’s fundraising apparatus to pay his legal fees and hopes the presidency will somehow shield him from further liability," editors wrote. "If he can put some of his critics in jail, that’s fine, too."

"With this oh-so-inspiring agenda, Republicans can expect Trump to have his usual electoral effect — that is, to drag down his own party at every opportunity," the editorial continued. "Recall that Trump was the first president in about nine decades to lose the House, the Senate and the Oval Office in a single term. Remember, too, that in competitive races his preferred candidates underperformed by about 5 percentage points on average. Trump himself remains remarkably unpopular, and he shows no inclination to widen his appeal."

Bloomberg made it clear that President Joe Biden is a beatable candidate by anyone other than Trump, calling him a "weak incumbent" who "polls poorly, blunders frequently and lacks (shall we say) a certain youthful vitality." But they added that with Republicans plowing ahead with the former president as their chosen general election candidate, they'll "have only themselves to blame."

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Click here to read Bloomberg's full editorial.