Trump wants to sabotage his own party to send a message about himself: biographer
A Trump biographer suggested that Trump is sabotaging his own party ahead of the midterms for a selfish reason.
On an episode of The Daily Beast Podcast, Michael Wolff said that he believes Trump's strategy is to lay the groundwork for the Republicans to take the blame for losing the midterms, and his goal is to prove that the party needs him.
"You can actually kind of get inside his head, and that's what he's doing. He is now undermining the Republicans," Wolff said, adding that it's to "blame it on them, to reinforce the fact that they can't do anything if he's not running."
Wolff said that Trump's strategy when losing is "he just denies it [and blames] it on somebody else," and "it would seem now that he has gone down the path to do almost everything to undermine the Republicans."
On that point, Wolff looks to the bipartisan housing bill that Trump refuses to sign as a sign of undermining the GOP, explaining, "This was actually a bipartisan win that might have helped them during the midterms."
By refusing to sign the housing bill, "what he's stolen from the Republicans is the ability to show that they care, and this would have been very helpful" for them ahead of the midterms, which are now four months away.
Co-host Joanna Coles agreed that Trump is prepared to blame the GOP ranks, predicting, "He's going to blame John Thune (R-SD)," the Senate majority leader, and "He's going to blame John Cornyn (R-TX)," the veteran senator who was "scooped out of the way" by the Trump-endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the primaries.
"He's good at blaming," Wolff said.