President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., attend a cabinet meeting at the White House (Reuters)
The GOP is increasingly willing to launch revolts against President Donald Trump's agenda, and according to one of his past biographers, it is because his "low-rent lackeys and incompetents" are finally threatening their political "credibility."
After well over a year of seemingly unflinching loyalty, a contingent of Republicans in Congress now seems much more willing to push back against some of Trump's more toxic impulses, with more and more lawmakers joining votes to tank his war powers in Iran, block his tax-funded "anti-weaponization" slush fund and, most recently, to hit back against his controversial director of national intelligence, Bill Pulte.
Michael Wolff is a veteran reporter and author, best known for his extensive coverage of Trump's life and political career, based on access to sources in his inner circle and, on occasion, Trump himself. In the most recent edition of his Daily Beast podcast, "Inside Trump's Head," he gave his impression of why Republicans are now more willing to hit back against the president, chalking it up to growing worries that he and his cronies are doing severe damage to their credibility.
"I think it is that Trump’s low-rent lackeys and incompetents now are challenging every Republican senator’s credibility," Wolff explained to co-host, Joanna Coles.
He later argued that, "when this administration began, the new president gets the benefit of the doubt," explaining how many of Trump's terrible appointees were able to skate by the confirmation process despite the abundant evidence that they were unfit for their positions.
Now, with the coming midterms and Trump's toxic reputation with voters weighing heavily on their minds, Wolff predicted that GOP lawmakers will be thinking much harder about giving their support to the president's shoddy nominees, lest they make themselves look like sycophants to voters prepared to revolt against him at the ballot box.
“Almost each and every one of the senior Trump appointments — how do we characterize them? As lackeys and incompetents,” Wolff continued. “Almost everybody in the Senate, especially Republican senators, has had to reevaluate the votes that they’ve cast for these people and has had to reluctantly take responsibility for putting these lackeys, incompetents, and completely unfit people in the job. That is a pattern. That’s there. And this has become a separate political issue for Trump.”
He added: "All of these people are lackeys and incompetents, and that is among the central issues facing the Trump White House: the economy, the war, health care, is this new issue of lackeys and incompetents that surrounds him? So there’s backlash. People have to say, ‘We’re gonna be held responsible for this.'"
