The Republican National Coronation, er, Convention, features plenty of speakers who once called Trump “reprehensible,” a “con man,” or a “pathological liar.” Now, they’re lining up to bend the knee — and debase themselves.
- Nikki Haley, the former UN ambassador for disgraced former President Trump who later became his top 2024 primary opponent, once condemned Trump as “toxic,” and totally lacking in “moral clarity.” In February, she insisted: “I feel no need to kiss the ring.” But on Wednesday night, she puckered up, and gave a “strong endorsement.” She said: “We have a country to save, and a unified Republican Party is essential.” Talk about lacking moral clarity.
- Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) once famously quipped that, unlike Trump, he never paid “hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair.” Trump, of course, was criminally convicted after doing precisely that. DeSantis once said Trump was “missing in action,” had “set the stage” for rampant inflation, and has “lost the zip on [his] fastball.” He warned that Trump spelled doom for Republicans, because even a resurrected J.F.K. “wouldn’t energize Democrats as much as Donald Trump.” But on Tuesday night, DeSantis gave a full-throated endorsement, and jumped on the Trump train. Choo-choo!
- Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Ted Cruz (R-TX), likewise, melted down their last remaining vertebrae. Cruz once called Trump a “sniveling coward” in response to personal attacks on the appearance of Cruz’s wife, Heidi, as well as a Tweet threatening to “spill the beans” about her. “Leave Heidi the Hell alone!,” Cruz warned. Cruz called Trump a “bully,” a “narcissist,” and a “pathological liar” with “a consistent pattern of inciting violence.” Rubio, likewise, once blasted Trump as a “con artist.” He said the country could not afford to give “the nuclear codes of the United States to an erratic individual,” or turn over “the conservative movement to someone who has spent a career sticking it to working people.” He even mocked Trump’s “small hands,” suggesting “something else must be small.” Both hit the RNC stage on Tuesday night and plumped hard for that same guy! Rubio, who spent all year in a failed audition to become Trump’s veep, hailed Trump’s America First agenda. Cruz delivered his slobbering praise in a truly ugly, falsehood-riddled speech attacking immigrants.
The grand prize, of course, goes to Trump’s VP pick, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), for literally signing up to run with the guy he once worried could be “America’s Hitler.” It’s as if brazen hypocrisy among GOP elites is a sign of strength, or a way of saying: “I am a demi-god of bullshit, unbound by any social norms of consistency. Look upon my flagrant lies, and be amazed!”
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