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Former President Donald Trump was audible, if not visible, all day Monday – and the effect is to keep him at the center of the Republican Party conversation.
His reluctance, or inability, to stay low is exactly what many Trump watchers expected, but a stark departure from the behavior of other ex-presidents.
“The code of the Presidents’ Club is to step aside and give the new Commander-in-Chief a year or two,” CNN presidential historian Douglas Brinkley said.
But Trump is so narcissistic, “he can’t accept being out of the spotlight for a day,” Brinkley concluded.
Lately, Trump has been doing what came naturally – dictating tweet-like statements, calling for conservative talk shows, and generally causing trouble. “I like it better than Twitter,” he told Newsmax. “Actually, they did us a favor. It’s better.”
Trump has shown no courtesy to President Joe Biden since leaving the White House. On the contrary, he has repeatedly stung the Biden administration in the eye.
On the phone with one of his biggest sycophants, Newsmax’s Greg Kelly, on Monday night, Kelly speculated about Biden’s mental faculties, prompting Trump to say “something’s going on” with Biden. Trump then wondered “whether or not he understood what he was signing” as the invoices passed through his office.
Trump is the first US president to lose reelection in nearly thirty years. The last president who did not win a second term, George HW Bush, “has made it clear that he intends to retire from public life,” according to historian Tim Naftali’s biography on Bush.
Naftali said Bush told his successor, Bill Clinton, in November 1992 that “when I leave here you are not going to have any problems with me.”
The outgoing president added: “I won’t do anything to complicate your work and I just want you to know.”
It has since gradually increased its visibility, with emails sent to members of the “45 Office” media so far in March, twice as many as in February. His “Save America PAC” has also become very active in recent weeks, with much support, criticism of “RINOs” and slamming media statements.
Trump appeared aware of his media approach during a podcast recording with Lisa Boothe, which was released Monday morning. Trump was Boothe’s inaugural guest – which means the podcast is yet to achieve much notoriety or huge success. Trump said in a statement that she had done “an outstanding job” on Fox, so maybe he wanted to give his new podcast a boost.
In the conversation, Trump said that “people have seen a little bit of silence” from him, “but in fact, if you look at what has happened in the last period, we are sending out releases. much better captured. than any tweet. “
Trump told Boothe he now thinks official statements to the public are “much more elegant than a tweet, and I think that’s better understood. You see that.”
“Picked up” was the key phrase. The need for pickup – which means American news media attention – is at the heart of Trump’s post-presidential actions.
Rather than flying off to a vacation destination and writing a brief, he tries to stay relevant and on the media radar. And he continues to push the inflammatory claims that led to the January 6 riot, about winning the 2020 election and Biden stealing them from him, despite even calls from his own party to stop lying.
“Trump is unique in that he wants to make a lot of noise and gain attention after leaving the White House,” Brinkley said. “And that comes from his psychological belief that he remains the real president.”
On the podcast with Boothe, Trump falsely said that “we won and they won.”
“He’s desperate,” Brinkley said, “just to let people know“ I haven’t thrown in the towel, I’ve been nowhere, keep covering myself. “”
Brinkley has likened Trump to “an active political hand grenade, ready to blow up the American political system in any way he can. And he begins by threatening Republicans who have crossed paths with him. He is determined to make sure he does. remain Trump’s party. “
He has several television networks that seem ready to help him.
Last week, Trump called Fox for a live interview with Maria Bartiromo. The next day, his comments to Bartiromo were in high rotation on other right-wing networks and media.
In some cases, the networks are clearly looking for it. On Monday, when he called Harris Faulkner’s late-morning show on Fox, Faulkner asked why he felt the need to issue a statement attacking Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas: “Why did you feel like you needed it on this issue?
“Well,” said Trump, “you called me, I didn’t call you, in all honesty.”
To Kelly, he raised the possibility of a new social platform, saying “something will happen with social media if I want it to happen.”
By the end of the interview, Kelly looked stunned. “Very cool,” he said, “the President of the United States,” forgetting to call Trump “the old” president.
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