Trump is building “wonderment” for what’s to come:
As Republicans get ready to beat back a DONALD TRUMP impeachment conviction for the second time, sources close to the former president say he’s already imagining his comeback.
“He’s compared it to that time in between seasons of ‘The Apprentice,’ building anticipation and wonderment for what’s to come,” one adviser told us of the period between his White House exit, eventual acquittal and his second act.
Other Trump advisers said he has revelled in his silence on Twitter — expressing amazement at how much coverage his few public statements have garnered.
“He finally realizes less is more,” one of them said.
IVANKA TRUMP and JARED KUSHNER have warned Trump that while he has the votes for acquittal, he can still screw this up. “Snatch defeat from the jaws of victory” is the phrase Kushner has been heard using most frequently to describe the worry.
Trump has actually taken the advice, spending most of his days golfing when he’s not tossing out bad legal advice to his lawyers, advisers said.
“Right now Trump is thinking, ‘I’ve got 45 votes, all I have to do is go golfing and not do anything,’” one of the aides told us.
As for the actual impeachment programming, expect it to start with Trump’s lawyers laying out an argument that the trial itself is unconstitutional.
After that, they will “roll the tape” — video that one source likened to “the first three segments of a Hannity monologue.”
Needless to say, he’s plotting his revenge. It’s what he lives for:
Already, Trump aides contend, the impeachment process has proved beneficial to the ex-president — exposing disloyalty within the party’s ranks and igniting grassroots backlash against Republicans who have attempted to nudge the GOP base away from Trump. Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse spent last week fending off constituent criticisms and censures from state party officials after he compared Trumpism to “a civic cancer for the nation.” And Trump’s allies believe the ex-president’s impending impeachment trial will further illuminate who the turncoats are.
“It’s going to help expose more bad apples that he can primary if any senators vote to convict,” added the former campaign official.
While ensconced at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Trump has remained in touch with political allies and advisers. But he has intentionally kept a low profile, something that will likely continue this week. A former aide suggested Trump try to demonstrate his indifference to it all by spending much of impeachment playing golf, “as a way of sort of saying, ‘Who cares?’”
Aides expect that to change once the trial wraps up though, with Trump gradually reemerging in public and turning his attention toward seeking revenge against Republicans who, he believes, crossed him after he left office.
The format in which he pursues retribution is less clear. The president is still considering what mediums he should use as he remains barred from Twitter and has lost influential media allies like former Fox Business host Lou Dobbs, whose show was abruptly canceled last Friday.
That Politico article portrays Trump as a teflon juggernaut who is benefiting from impeachment because it’s corralled the Republicans back into his corner. It might be true, I don’t know. But from what I can tell this just fits the usual pattern in which Trump does something so reprehensible that decent people everywhere are shocked and appalled and then the Republicans come crawling back to kiss Dear Leader’s hem like the cowardly weasels they are once they remember that their voters are deluded cult followers who celebrate his grotesque behavior.
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