Editor's note: This article has been updated to include a statement from the White House.
A conservative commentator blasted President Donald Trump on Wednesday, alleging that he did not remember the name of Rep. Ryan Mackenzie (R-PA), a swing state House member running in a highly competitive race against Democratic nominee Bob Brooks.
“In the meantime, Donald Trump is utterly deranged,” Schmidt said about the leader of the Republican Party of which Schmidt himself (who advised President George W. Bush) was once a prominent member. “In Pennsylvania, he cannot remember the name of the congressman he has come to campaign for, but he does know the name of the manager of the facility — and watch these people cheer for their economic annihilation.”
Schmidt was referring to Trump’s speech on Tuesday at the Mack Trucks facility in Lower Macungie, PA. Packed with hundreds of Trump supporters in a spacious campus, yet filled with the odor of industrial machinery, Trump first delivered a tribute to outgoing Mack Trucks president Stephen Roy. After that, he promoted Mackenzie’s candidacy without mentioning him by name.
"We got to get a certain — we got to get a certain very talented congressman reelected,” Trump said in his speech. “You know that. We got to get him. Where are you? Where are you, Mr. Congressman? We got to get you back in. Thank you, and thank you, Steven."
Schmidt described Trump as “crazy Donald,” deriding him for “[talking] to this crowd in Pennsylvania after forgetting the name of the congressman he was there to campaign for.” He proceeded to criticize Trump for baselessly claiming a Republican candidate for Los Angeles mayor, his fellow ex-reality TV star Spencer Pratt, lost the election due to voter fraud. After that, he returned to alleging that Trump is corrupt and unfit to be president.
Trump is guilty of “corruption like has never been imagined in the history of the United States, and a reflecting pool connecting the Lincoln and Washington monuments that has become a fetid, scum-filled pond with dead floating ducks, guarded by the Army and fenced off by the National Park Service to keep tourists away from documenting Trump's vandalism,” Schmidt said. Make America Great Again, indeed.”
He concluded, “The American people have survived two years of Trump, and he's about to have a big check put on him. He is falling apart — obese and elderly, sleepy and incontinent. Donald Trump is the worst president in American history.”
Speaking exclusively to AlterNet about Schmidt’s accusation, Mackenzie campaign manager Andres Weller claimed Schmidt was mistaken.
"Apparently, Mr. Schmidt missed President Trump repeatedly highlighting Congressman Mackenzie’s great work for the Lehigh Valley and Poconos and directly saying 'We got to get Ryan Mackenzie elected,'” Weller told AlterNet. "Made up storylines by Democrats like Steve Schmidt are only meant to try and divert attention from the major wins Congressman Mackenzie has achieved for the district, like the $47 million he recently secured that will support good-paying, union manufacturing jobs at Mack Defense."
White House Press Secretary Anna Kelly added that, “No serious person considers the nutjob founder of the Lincoln Project a ‘conservative’ or cares what he thinks."
"While this loser spends his time directing staff to pose as neo-Nazis, President Trump was proud to visit thousands of great patriots in Pennsylvania, who are benefitting (sic) from historic tax cuts and job creating under this administration," said Kelly — while misspelling the word "benefiting" in an email.
Mackenzie is a first-term incumbent seeking to fend off Brooks, a former firefighter widely believed to be capable of waging a competitive race against the Republican. When AlterNet attended the rally on Tuesday, this reporter noted that the attendees backed the president even in his policies that are controversial outside of the MAGA base.
