I don’t know if Steve M. is correct when he argues that Donald Trump has avoided an early death, despite his weight, poor diet and inadequate exercise regimen because he gets off on humiliating people and it keeps him hale and healthy. But I do know that Steve’s two main examples are pretty good.
Steve details the spectacle of Fox News personalities traveling to Bedminster, New Jersey, to lobby Trump to participate in the network’s hosting of the first Republican presidential debate of the 2023-24 season. First, Fox News president Jay Wallace and chief executive Suzanne Scott were dispatched on this errand, and then Fox News contributor and columnist Charlie Hurt. While Hurt was there, the debate’s moderator Bret Baier telephoned.
Trump humored them, but he never had any intention of participating in the debate. Instead, he will give an exclusive interview to the man Fox News recently fired, Tucker Carlsen.
For his second example, Steve goes with the same thing I wrote about on Thursday, which is Trump’s decision to stiff Rudy Giuliani on his legal bills, with the exception of a onetime payment of $340,000 to a vendor that is hosting the ex-mayor’s electronic records.
And I’m sure Trump also draws spiritual nourishment from how easy it is now to swindle Rudy Giuliani, a guy who used to be the racist, angry alpha dog of New York…
…And the $340K wasn’t even paid to Giuliani — it went to a vendor Giuliani hired to do record searches.
It still pains Trump that he was never accepted as a great man in Manhattan society during his youth. But he compensates by screwing other people over, especially the powerful or formerly powerful.
I think that’s what’s keeping him alive.
It’s actually plausible that Trump gets a thrill out of seeing Giuliani destitute and headed for prison. Maybe it’s such a thrill that it’s worth it even if Giuliani turns against him and helps Jack Smith and Fani Willis secure convictions in their cases against him. If so, it shows what loyalty is really worth to Trump.
