Trump’s tweets play offense and defense
President Trump insisted his base is “far bigger & stronger than ever before” and assailed Connecticut U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal as a “phony Vietnam con artist” as the commander-in-chief insulted his way through the first weekday of his “working vacation.”
“The Trump base is far bigger & stronger than ever before (despite some phony Fake News polling),” the president tweeted.
“Look at rallies in Penn, Iowa, Ohio and West Virginia,” he continued. “The fact is the Fake News Russian collusion story, record Stock Market, border security, military strength, jobs, Supreme Court pick, economic enthusiasm, deregulation & so much more have driven the Trump base even closer together. Will never change!”
The proclamation on Twitter came one day after White House advisor Kellyanne Conway told ABC News that Trump’s approval ratings “among Republicans and conservatives and Trump voters is down slightly. It needs to go up.”
But the tweets were also an attempt to put to rest speculation, sparked by a New York Times story over the weekend, that Vice President Mike Pence is acting like a second-term heir apparent, positioning himself for a White House bid in 2020 in case Trump opts not to run for re-election.
Trump may also be spending parts of his vacation monitoring cable news channels. Shortly after Blumenthal criticized him on CNN amid allegations of collusion and the investigation into Russian meddling in the presidential election, Trump blasted the senator on Twitter.
“Interesting to watch Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut talking about hoax Russian collusion when he was a phony Vietnam con artist!” Trump tweeted. “Never in U.S. history has anyone lied or defrauded voters like Senator Richard Blumenthal.”
That jab referred to an embarrassing 2010 New York Times expose revealing that despite Blumenthal’s claims that he “served in Vietnam,” he actually received five deferments and eventually landed in the Marine Reserves, and was never sent to Vietnam.
“I think Senator Blumenthal should take a nice long vacation in Vietnam, where he lied about his service, so he can at least say he was there,” Trump tweeted.
Blumenthal responded later yesterday by accusing Trump of “bullying.”
Washington, D.C., watchers believed that the appointment of retired Marine Gen. John Kelly as White House Chief of Staff would usher in a new wave of discipline — including to Trump’s Twitter habits. And while the president had been tweeting less lately, his social media barbs returned to their unfiltered form as he began the first week of vacation.