Something is totally off about the GOP, WikiLeaks, and this new anti-Trump book
Michael Wolff’s humiliating new book about Donald Trump is the worst thing that’s ever happened to Trump. It’ll quickly do more damage to him in the court of public opinion than his Russia scandal has over the past year, because while most people still don’t fully understand the complex Russia scandal, everyone easily understands the thrust of this book: even Trump’s own people think he’s a deranged inept idiot who shouldn’t be in office. So this book was not some secret master stroke by Trump. It was a damaging screw up. That said, there is something totally off about how the GOP and WikiLeaks are approaching this book.
It’s not surprising to see Donald Trump bringing attention to the book by obsessively tweeting about it. He’s consistently shown that he doesn’t understand, or doesn’t care, that barking about these things only gives more life to them. But why is the Republican Party working so hard to push this book front and center? The GOP is doing everything from tweeting negatively about the book from its official Twitter account, to running ads disputing the book. And why is WikiLeaks publishing the entire book online for all to read?
The GOP leadership and WikiLeaks are savvy enough to know that they’re only serving to bring more attention to the embarrassing revelations about Trump in this book. They know they’re harming him. The question is why. Two explanations come to mind.
The first would be that the GOP and its ally WikiLeaks are trying to push Donald Trump’s personal troubles to the forefront in order to distract from the party’s increasingly unpopular and corrupt legislative agenda, and they simply don’t care that they’re hurting Trump in the process. The second would be that this is an attempt at finishing Trump off, in the hope of getting Mike Pence into power.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report