Donald Trump was hit by Morning Joe host Mika Brzezinski Friday who exclaimed "this behavior is grotesque" as she discussed a column that highlighted the former president's efforts to be the "victim king."
Anand Giridharadas penned the column for The.Ink, writing how Trump compared himself this week to Alexei Navalny, the Russian freedom fighter and target of Vladimir Putin who mysteriously died in captivity.
At the same time, Trump has spent the past several years championing Putin and convincing the once-anti-Soviet Republican Party to stand with the Russian leader.
"More importantly, Trump has done everything in his power to make the world safer for Putin, to make the world his oyster," wrote Giridharadas. "But when Navalny, Putin’s nemesis as leader of the Russian pro-democracy opposition, died in prison this week, Trump found himself stirred by the story of a great martyr — because Navalny reminded him of…him."
"Trump’s simultaneous identification with the Russian tyrant and the pro-democratic leader he muzzled and killed is less strange than it seems, because it is important to Trump’s project that he be both invulnerable strongman and persecuted martyr. He is a master at performing the Victim King," the piece explains.
Discussing it on "Morning Joe," Brzezinski pointed to Trump's New York fraud trial and Judge Arthur Engoron, who described the ex-president by saying he simply can't control himself enough to become an honest man.
He's "pathologically not capable of not being a fraud," Brzezinski characterized the Engoron comments.
It's "similar here, this behavior is grotesque," she continued. "It's also pathological. He is so intent on creating pain and creating trouble that he can't help himself. I think your thesis is really a great description of how Donald Trump moves himself forward."
Giridharadas agreed, describing Trump as a "very weak man. A man of great woundedness and weakness inside. He's a weak man who wants to be a strong man."
He explained that Trump manages to convince his supporters that he is both a strong man and a victim.
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"He's constantly showing this existential vulnerability to his supporters, which makes them want to save him instead of what's normally supposed to happen in a democracy, which is the leader worrying about you," Giridharadas said.
"He's trying to turn that around and make his followers expect nothing from him but to actually save him, even sack the Capitol for him. That's half of the victim king equation. This guy plays the victim to try to be king."
He explained that the tactic convinces people in the MAGA movement to have a "victimization complex."
"It's really a remarkable thing, to see so many Americans who are living in a country that has done more for them than most places in the world would do for them, play this fantasy that they are victims and only he can save them," Giridharadas said.
See the full conversation in the video below or at the link here.
Trump is 'pathologically incapable of not being a fraud': Morning Mikayoutu.be
