Cockburn started his day yesterday afternoon scratching his head, and the confusion wasn’t due to a hangover (this time). “Trumpworld Goes Into Meltdown After Trump Endorses Dr. Oz” was one headline Cockburn found puzzling. “Ex-president faces fierce GOP backlash after endorsing TV’s Dr Oz in Senate race” was another.
Things were equally befuddling on Twitter.
“This endorsement could divide MAGA in the only way that matters: he could lose America First conservatives over it,” tweeted Breitbart’s editor-at-large Joel Pollak. “It’s like Donald Trump’s staff is sabotaging Trump by convincing him to make the worst possible endorsements,” echoed right-wing radio host Erick Erickson.
“Oz is the antithesis of everything that made Trump the best president of my lifetime,” tweeted Sean Parnell, who is, of course, an expert on the topic of earning valuable endorsements. He was Trump’s first choice for Pennsylvania’s US Senate seat before he had to drop out of the race amid allegations he abused his estranged wife.
“The worst possible endorsement”…“the antithesis” of Trump…really, guys? The Daily Beast tried to identify the reasons for this hysteria:
At issue among Trump’s most fervent supporters is the belief that Oz, a Turkish-American TV physician who has hobnobbed with Hollywood’s elite and has flip-flopped on the issue of abortion, isn’t a trustworthy “America First” Republican candidate, compared to fellow candidate Dave McCormick…
Except that Trump himself “hobnobbed with Hollywood’s elite” when he took part in Wrestlemania and made a cameo in Home Alone 2 and starred on The Apprentice and for decades was a member of the Screen Actors Guild. How can it be that Cockburn, whose nightly martini habit helps him dis-remember many unpleasant things, is seemingly the only person now who recalls Trump saying, “I’m pro-life, and I was originally pro-choice. I have evolved”? If that’s not “flip-flopping on the issue of abortion” then Cockburn doesn’t know what is.
It should come as no surprise that Trump has endorsed Dr. Oz. They’re cut from the same cloth. Melania is a Dr. Oz fan. And though the wife of Oz’s closest challenger, Dave McCormick, served in the Trump administration, McCormick himself rejected Trump’s offer to be deputy secretary of defense in favor of keeping his hedge fund job, while Oz accepted Trump’s appointment to his sport, fitness and nutrition council.
It’s also not surprising that in his endorsement, Trump noted that Oz “has lived with us through the screen and has always been popular, respected, and smart” and that “Oz will be the one most able to win the General Election against a Radical Left Democrat” — points made last week here at the Spectator. Are we now Trump’s go-to source for news and commentary? Cockburn can’t help but hope so.
