Donald Trump’s “shithole” scandal hurls Republican Party into civil war
Donald Trump’s “shithole” scandal is playing out rather badly for him. His base can love the racist sentiment all it wants, but his fate was always going to be decided by his more tepid supporters outside of his base, the ones who try to pretend that Trump’s racism doesn’t exist. Even as the media finally begins calling Trump a racist and hammering that message into the minds of his non-base supporters, this is playing out perhaps even worse for the GOP, thanks to the ugly infighting that’s erupted into a public fight.
The trouble began when Democratic Senator Dick Durbin confirmed that he heard Trump’s “shitholes” remark, and then Republican Senator Tim Scott confirmed that Lindsey Graham had told him he heard it as well. This left racist Republican Senators Tom Cotton and David Perdue in a tricky spot. They put out a statement claiming that they couldn’t specifically recall Trump saying “shithole.” No one bought that explanation, so now they’re trying another one.
Last night the Trump administration told Washington Post reporter Josh Dawsey that Cotton and Perdue actually thought they heard Trump say “shithouse” instead (link). This reeks of desperation. If that’s what they did hear, then they sure were disingenuously splitting hairs when they previously claimed Trump didn’t say “shithole” while conveniently declining to mention that they did hear Trump say “shithouse.” In addition, “shithouse countries” doesn’t even make sense. Not surprisingly, this prompted Graham to publicly push back, further escalating the war of words.
Lindsey Graham is now firing back at Cotton and Perdue, saying “I know what was said and I know what I said” while taking a swipe at their changing story by saying that “my memory hasn’t evolved.” (link) Senators don’t ever publicly talk about each other like this, particularly within the same party. In comparison to their usual decorum, they’re now setting each other on fire. So now, even as we wait to see what kind of damage shithole-gate does to Donald Trump’s already historically low approval rating, we’re also watching the Republican Party eat itself in public as part of the fallout.
