WASHINGTON — You know who doesn’t like being called “the Washington establishment”? The Washington establishment, it seems.
With former President Donald Trump winning numerous congressional endorsements ahead of today’s New Hampshire primary, former Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC) and her surrogates have started accusing Trump of becoming the “establishment.”
“Now we have a two-person race here. One who has the entire political elite around him, but I never wanted that,” Haley told voters Monday in Salem, N.H.
“Trump is more of the establishment guy now,” Gov. Chris Sununu (R-NH) — Haley’s top surrogate in New Hampshire — said on Fox News today.
But the new charge from Haley and her surrogates isn’t sitting well with Republicans in Congress.
“What do you make of Nikki Haely saying you and other Republicans backing Trump are the establishment?” Raw Story asked 10 Senate Republicans on Tuesday.
“That’s bogus,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) told Raw Story. “The definition of ‘establishment’ sure changed.”
“Oh, I don’t have a comment on that — none whatsoever. Zero,” Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID) told Raw Story.
“She said that about me?” Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID) told Raw Story.
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“She said, ‘the Washington establishment’s coming around Trump’,” Raw Story replied.
“Umm, I mean, I don’t think that’s necessarily true — I don’t know, I haven’t even analyzed endorsements. I see these reports about how many senators are endorsing Trump and that sort of thing, but the decision is individual for each senator and each House member and everyone else. So I think those are individual decisions,” Crapo said.
“Does this race feel wrapped to you? Has Trump wrapped it?”
“I’m not going to go that far yet, but, obviously, Trump is making very good progress,” Crapo said. “Tonight’s vote will be important.”
Raw Story then asked a Trump arch enemy-turned-friend.
“Sen. Cruz, are you a part of the Washington establishment, as Nikki Haley says?”
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President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump disembark Air Force One Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2019, at El Paso International Airport greeted by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, and El Paso Mayor Dee Margo. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)
One of Cruz’s aides laughed, but the junior senator from Texas didn’t reply or turn and instead kept walking into a lunch for Senate Republicans.
“No,” Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND) told Raw Story after initially laughing off the charge. “No. I don’t think so. He’s very responsive to the grassroots, and that’s why he’s so popular with people.”
At least one Senate Republican isn’t laughing.
“Oh, I think she’s absolutely right,” Sen. Todd Young (R-IN) told Raw Story. “I’ve been saying this for a while, I use the term, ‘Trump establishment.’”
While Young never formally endorsed in the GOP primary, last year he announced he wouldn’t be backing Trump in the 2024 contest — in part because of Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection.
“I think that the safe and predictable position of many Republican leaders in this place is to embrace the Trump establishment. Period,” Young said.
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While Haley has secured one endorsement from a sitting member of Congress, Trump has secured endorsements from 122 Republicans in the House along with the backing of 26 Senate Republicans.
Haley’s one congressional endorsement — Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) — is from her home turf, and her lone Palmetto State backer only got lonelier in recent days after Trump won endorsements from former presidential primary contender Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) over the weekend and Reps. Nancy Mace (R-SC) and Jeff Duncan (R-SC) on Monday.
Some of Trump’s most diehard supporters in Congress reject the criticism that they’re now the “establishment.”
“I think that the Washington establishment is the only reason Nikki Haley has a campaign,” Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) told Raw Story. “When you think about where her donors come from, who her voters are, she depends on the Washington establishment, and if she didn’t have them, she’d have nothing.”
“Now that Trump has effectively wrapped this thing up, there’s this whole argument people try to make, ‘well, he’s the new establishment’ — he’s not the new establishment. He just won. There’s a difference,” Vance said.
In Republican circles in Washington, there’s an air of inevitability around the former president.
“He’s gonna be the nominee,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) told Raw Story. “I hope people try and put aside their differences and get behind him. If you want to beat Joe Biden — which I want to do — this guy, he’s gonna be it.”
Other Republicans fear Haley’s forcing the party to waste precious 2024 resources.
“She’s in the heat of a campaign,” Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) told Raw Story. “Donald Trump’s going to be our nominee. It’s time for us to unify and get around him and stop wasting money on primaries.”
One of Trump’s 2016 primary opponents, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), didn’t drop out of the primary until after his home state voters backed Trump, so he isn’t reading too much into Haley’s new line of attack.
Donald Trump, Marco Rubio (Photo by Jim Watson for AFP)
“I mean, that’s a line that people in politics use when they’re campaigning,” Rubio — who Trump once derided as “lil Marco” — told Raw Story. “I was a candidate for president, and so you follow whatever angle you can pursue. I don’t think that’s what voters are going to make their decision on. I think it’s hard to argue that Donald Trump is somebody that’s a member of the Washington establishment in good standing.”
Rubio went down swinging past Super Tuesday in 2016, and he expects nothing else in this 2024 GOP primary.
“It’s like asking two people in a boxing match why they’re throwing punches at each other, because it’s a boxing match. You’re involved in a competition,” Rubio said. “It happens in Democratic primaries too. Kamala Harris insinuated that Joe Biden might have been a segregationist, and now she’s the vice president.”
