Shameless Hypocrites for Trump

Some of the former President’s supporters are deluded; others are not. It’s worth remembering what they once had to say.

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There are, among the denizens of Trump World, quite a few souls who earnestly and inexplicably believe the former President is fit for that office. But there are also those who, even more inexplicably, support him even though they know better—people who have in the distant (or not-so-distant) past clearly identified Trump’s manifest deficiencies. Here, drawn from a much larger pool of possibilities, are ten examples:

“The thing about Donald Trump is that he lacks the character and the moral center we desperately need again in the White House . . . . I am afraid he would break more things than he fixes. He is a hot head by nature, and that is a dangerous trait to have in a Commander in Chief.” —Mike Johnson, Facebook post on August 7, 2015, before Johnson’s election to Congress and Trump’s ascent to the presidency. Now Johnson, as speaker of the House, endorses Trump and has emerged as one of his most ardent defenders against what he has called the “overtly weaponized political prosecutions” Trump is now facing. Johnson explained his conversion last November to The New York Times: “During his 2016 campaign, President Trump quickly won me and millions of my fellow Republicans over.” Johnson “got to know him personally” and “grew to appreciate the person that he is and the qualities about him that made him the extraordinary President that he was.”

“The problem now is he is not the same person he was in 2016. He is unhinged; he is more diminished than he was . . . . He is now saying things that don’t make sense.”—Nikki Haley, in a February 13, 2024, interview on NBC’s “TODAY” show. The day before, the former South Carolina governor and former ambassador to the United Nations stated on CNN that “chaos follows [Trump]. We have too much division in this country, and too many threats around the world to be sitting in chaos once again.” Oh, and she blasted Trump for having called fallen U.S. soldiers “losers” and “suckers” after he mocked her husband’s military service. She now says, “I will be voting for Trump,” adding that she recognizes he “has not been perfect.”  

 “I will never vote for Donald Trump because I stand with certain principles. I stand with small government and free markets and religious freedom and personal responsibility. Donald Trump stands against all of these things . . . . I stand with the Constitution of the United States, and its embedded protection of my God-given rights through governmental checks and balances. Donald Trump does not. I stand with conservatism. Donald Trump stands against it.”—Ben Shapiro, in an article he wrote in March 2016. The professional provocateur went on to endorse Trump in 2020, bizarrely contending, “Whatever damage he was going to do, he’s already done.” This January, Shapiro offered another novel defense of his favored candidate, saying that since Trump is constitutionally limited to two terms, he will not be able to “end democracy” as some people fear (and others hope) because his time will be up and he will not be allowed on ballots. “So, actually, if you want Donald Trump not to screw with the elections anymore and you think he’s really gonna screw with the elections,” he said, “you ought to vote for Donald Trump.” Huh?

“What Trump did last week [the week of January 6, 2021] was wrong. Downright abhorrent. Plain and simple.”—Vivek Ramaswamy, in a tweet days after the January 6 Capitol attack. The biotech entrepreneur would go on to declare, during the GOP presidential candidates debates, that January 6 “now does look like it was an inside job.” Ramaswamy is also among the Republicans who have rushed to New York City to lament Trump’s prosecution for falsifying business records in his hush money trial. He proclaimed on May 14 on X: “This sham trial is a politically motivated assault on the leading candidate for U.S. President, green lit by his political opponent, Joe Biden, and carried out at the highest levels of the White House and Department of Justice.”

“Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office.” Also: “Trump makes people I care about afraid. Immigrants, Muslims, etc. Because of this I find him reprehensible. God wants better of us.” And also: “I can’t stomach Trump. I think that he’s noxious.”— J.D. Vance, in an April 2016 op-ed in The New York Times, an October 2016 tweet, and an August 2016 interview on NPR. Vance renounced his former criticism of Trump in a July 2021 appearance on Fox News, saying, “I regret being wrong about the guy.” Elected to the U.S. Senate in 2022, thanks in no small part to Trump’s endorsement, the venture capitalist and best-selling author is now among the clique of sycophants who have shown up outside Trump’s hush money trial in New York City to make disparaging remarks about the judge’s daughter and government witnesses as a way of circumventing the judge’s gag order on Trump.

“Trump is a huge distraction, and cares more about himself than the country in my opinion, but I could care less about him.”—Byron Donalds, in an April 2011 Facebook post, in response to Trump’s baseless claims that Obama’s birth certificate was fake. A month later, when Trump announced that he was not going to seek the presidency, Donalds declared, “Thank God.” Now Donalds is under consideration by The Donald to be his running mate. He is a participant, along with Johnson and Ramaswamy, in Trump’s slander campaign via proxy against the judge, the prosecution, and a number of witnesses in Trump’s hush money trial. Donalds has called the trial a “joke,” a “farce,” and a “travesty of justice.”

“He offers a barking carnival act that can be best described as Trumpism: a toxic mix of demagoguery, mean-spiritedness, and nonsense that will lead the Republican Party to perdition if pursued . . . . Let no one be mistaken—Donald Trump’s candidacy is a cancer on conservatism, and it must be clearly diagnosed, excised, and discarded.”—Rick Perry, during a July 2015 speech in Washington, D.C. A few months later, he decided to back Trump’s campaign. “He is not a perfect man,” the then Texas governor told CNN. “But what I do believe is that he loves this country and he will surround himself with capable, experienced people and he will listen to them.” How’d that turn out? Perry served three years as Trump’s Secretary of Energy, after which he compared the then President to Old Testament kings, proclaiming him to be God’s “chosen one” to lead the nation.

“He’s a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot.” Also: “I think he’s a kook. I think he’s crazy. I think he’s unfit for office.” And also: “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed . . . and we will deserve it.”—Lindsey Graham, in a Demember 2015 interview on CNN and a February 2016 interview on Fox, and a May 2016 tweet. Graham soon made up with Trump, supported his candidacy, and went on to become perhaps his most obsequious supporter. He recounted his transformation for a February 2019 article in The New York Times Magazine: “I went from, ‘O.K., he’s President’ to ‘How can I get to be in his orbit?’ ” The two are currently having a lovers’ spat over Trump’s failure to openly back a nationwide, fifteen-week abortion ban. But Graham remains solidly in Trump’s corner, heading into the future, even passing the GOP’s new loyalty test by agreeing on May 13 to accept the results of the 2024 election “if there’s no massive cheating.”

“He says he’s for the little guy, but he’s actually built a lot of his businesses on the backs of the little guy . . . . The little guys have suffered.” Also: “Do I want somebody who hurls personal insults or who goes and talks about philosophical differences?”—Kellyanne Conway, in an appearance on CNN in February 2016. In April 2016, also on CNN, she called him “unpresidential” and chided his “vulgar” language. Conway went on to become Trump’s campaign manager and White House counselor. She coined the phrase “alternative facts,” which captured the ethos of the Trump Administration. She left the White House before the end of his first term but now appears to be angling for a role in his campaign, advising him to pick a “person of color” for his running mate. In her 2022 book, Here’s the Deal, Conway recalls telling Trump over dinner at Mar-a-Lago a year earlier that she wished he were still in the Oval Office. “We’ll be back, honey,” Trump replied. “We’ll all be back.”

“[Trump] is a consummate narcissist and he constantly engages in reckless conduct that puts his political followers at risk and the conservative and Republican agenda at risk.”—Bill Barr, in a June 2023 interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” Trump’s former Attorney General previously compared him to a “defiant nine-year-old kid” and labeled him in a 2022 book as “incorrigible” and “erratic,” saying, “He has neither the temperament nor the persuasive powers to provide the kind of positive leadership that is needed.” And in July 2023, Barr said: “I have made clear that I strongly oppose Trump for the nomination and will not endorse Trump.” On April 17, Barr declared that he is supporting Trump’s bid for reelection, saying, “I think it’s my duty to pick the person I think would do the least harm to the country.”