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Two things have remained constant throughout Donald Trump’s public careers, from his early days peddling questionable real estate deals in the 1970s to life after leaving the White House. First, his almost obsessive attention to everything the New York Times writes about him, despite denouncing the paper as fake. Second, his willingness to lash out over any perceived slight, even if it makes him seem petty or irrational.
So, it should be no surprise he responded to a New York Times story suggesting Gov. Kim Reynolds is working behind the scenes to support Ron DeSantis, while officially maintaining she is neutral in the race to win the Iowa Republican Caucus.
On Monday, Trump used his preferred social media platform, Truth Social, to basically accuse Reynolds of being disloyal. Trump said he “opened up the Governor position for Kim Reynolds,” referring to Lt. Gov. Reynolds becoming governor in 2017 after Terry Branstad became Trump’s ambassador to China.
Trump then goes on to make the doubtful claim that his endorsement of Reynolds in 2018 was the deciding factor in her victory over Democrat Fred Hubbell. It’s a claim Trump’s made before, but nothing that happened during the final days of the 2018 campaign suggests it’s true.
Ironically, the story that produced that complaint from Trump reads like it was inspired in the first place by complaints from the Trump campaign.
According to the Times story published on Saturday, “Trump advisers have snickered privately about [Reynolds] having neutrality-in-name-only.” The reporters quote a “person close to Mr. Trump, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the [Trump] team’s thinking” who complains “She is quote unquote neutral.” (Allowing politicians and political operatives to anonymously complain about other politicians and political operatives is a hallmark of Times campaign coverage.)
The closest thing to firm evidence that the story cites is that Reynolds has appeared at DeSantis events during three of his four campaign trips to Iowa. Of course, the governor has appeared at events with other Republican candidates, as the story notes.
Beyond the three-out-of-four stat, the Times opts for a vague metaphor, although even that is qualified by a “seems.” “[T]hrough her words and deeds, Ms. Reynolds seems to be softening the ground in Iowa for Mr. DeSantis, appearing to try to create the conditions for an opening for him to take on Mr. Trump,” the three reporters who wrote the story assert.
What exactly does “softening the ground” mean? The reader is not told.
The story also claims that Reynolds and DeSantis have a special bond.
“He calls her Kim.”
“She calls him Ron.”
“They banter with a degree of familiarity and friendship that Mr. DeSantis rarely flashes with other politicians. People who know them say they forged a bond during the coronavirus pandemic, as two governors who pressed to open their states over the warnings of some public health officials.”
If nothing else, the suggestion that two people can bond over allowing an untold number of those most vulnerable to COVID-19 in their states to die because they were opposed to virus mitigation efforts for ideological or crassly political reasons is interesting.
Surprisingly absent from the Times story is that on the day he formally announced he was running, a pro-DeSantis PAC published a list of 37 Republicans in the Iowa Legislature who endorsed the Florida governor for president. Did Reynolds play a role in securing those endorsements for DeSantis? We don’t know, but we do know he calls her “Kim,” and she calls him “Ron.”
