The real story of Donald Trump’s Phoenix rally: he’s using it to declare war on the Republican Party
The story of Donald Trump’s rally tonight in Phoenix isn’t his supposed reelection bid (it’s nothing more than an excuse to fundraise and pocket the money), or his much anticipated pardon of former Sheriff Joe Arpaio (it’s not happening), or even the presence of Trump’s white supremacist supporters (though they’ll be there). The real story is that Trump has set this rally up as an official declaration of war against his own Republican Party.
There’s a reason Mitch McConnell fed a story today to the New York Times about how he doesn’t think Trump is going to survive. McConnell is preemptively going on offense because he knows what Trump is about to do tonight. It’s been telegraphed by who’s set to be in attendance tonight and who isn’t. Trump has invited Kelli Ward, an extremist politician who’s challenging Senator Jeff Flake in the 2018 republican primary race. Trump is so angry at what he sees as a lack of loyalty from Republican Senators, he’s already actively (and officially) working to pick them off one by one.
It’s why no major Republican office holders in Arizona, not Flake, not John McCain, and not even the Governor, will be in attendance tonight. None of them want to be anywhere near Trump’s big push for Kelli Ward. This marks the beginning of a civil war within the Republican Party, and it’s about to get very, very ugly.
Only Donald Trump knows how far he’ll take things tonight. He behaved himself last night by sticking to the script on Afghanistan, and he usually likes to rebel against that kind of thing by going overboard with ad libbed spite the next time around. So who knows who all in the GOP will face his wrath tonight. Certainly Jeff Flake. Will he also hit McCain? What about McConnell? We’re about to find out. But this is just the start of the intramural ugliness.
