Levin Report: Trump Angrily Insists He Spends Almost No Time At All Coming Up With Mean Nicknames About Ron DeSantis

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If you’ve been conscious for the last half a decade and change, you are well aware of the fact that one of Donald Trump’s “things” is coming up with mean, infantile nicknames about his perceived enemies. Crooked Hillary, Sleepy Joe, Lyin’ James Comey, and Crazy Nancy are some of the most well-known ones, but these only represent a fraction of the man’s oeuvre. Not surprisingly, the former president took to calling Ron DeSantis, his would-be competition for the GOP presidential nomination, “Ron DeSanctimonious” last year, and more recently, he’s apparently been referring to the Florida governor as “Meatball Ron” and “Shutdown Ron,” the first being an apparent reference to his somewhat squat appearance, and the latter the restrictions he put in place at the start of the pandemic.

On Sunday, in a piece about DeSantis’s strategy for dealing with Trump’s attacks, The New York Times wrote:

Mr. Trump, who has spent weeks trying to goad Mr. DeSantis into a fight with rude nicknames like “Ron DeSanctimonious,” is stepping up his social-media-fueled assault, even as polls and interviews show that Mr. DeSantis has become the leading alternative to the former president for many voters and donors.

Mr. Trump’s efforts to undermine Mr. DeSantis began with the “DeSanctimonious” nickname as the governor concluded his successful reelection campaign. Many conservatives—who had cheered Mr. Trump’s behavior when it was directed at Democrats—reacted angrily and were protective of Mr. DeSantis.

There was nothing in there about how long it took Trump to come up with DeSanctimonious, or any of the other nicknames he’s given the governor, and yet on Monday night, he took to Truth Social to angrily write: “All of the Fake News is reporting that I spend large amounts of my time coming up with a good ‘nickname’ for Ron DeSanctimonious, who is obviously going to give the presidential ‘thing’ a shot. They are all 100% wrong, I don’t even think about it—A very unimportant subject to me!!!” Setting aside the question of where Trump read or thinks he read reporting that he’s been devoting large amounts of time to nicknaming, it’s obvious he’s got a strong fear about thinking he works hard on these things, as opposed to just coming up with them spur of the moment. Which no one was probably thinking in the first place, until he took to social media to protest too much, and now we’re just going to assume he spends every waking hour on this shit.

Nikki Haley’s 2024 pitch: America is awesome (if you compare the US to countries committing genocide)

Nikki Haley is running for president, making her the first Republican to challenge Donald Trump for the GOP nomination. What’s the former UN ambassador’s pitch to voters? According to a campaign ad released on Tuesday, she’s got a few. Her first: that it’s time for a “new generation of leadership,” starting, of course, with her. Second: That as the child of Indian immigrants, she can confidently say racism is not a problem in America. And last: that she doesn‘t want to hear any liberals complaining about this country, which is practically perfect, if you compare it to places that commit genocide and throw babies into fires.

On the racism point, Haley tells viewers that critics “look at our past as evidence that America’s founding principles”—which involved categorizing Black people as three fifths of a person—“are bad.” But according to the would-be president, “Nothing could be further from the truth.… Even on our worst day, we are blessed to live in America. I was born and raised in South Carolina. So I have seen the very best of our country.” Interestingly, she does not mention the massacre that occurred in South Carolina just a few years before she was born, wherein highway patrolmen opened fire on approximately 200 unarmed Black students protesting racial segregation; or the 1995 burning of a Black church by members of the Ku Klux Klan; or the 164 lynchings that occurred in the state between Reconstruction and World War II; or the present-day racial gerrymandering. Probably only because she had to, as she was governor at the time, Haley does refer to the 2015 mass shooting in which a white nationalist shot and killed nine Black people during a bible study class at a Charleston church. However, she only does so by way of vague platitudes, saying: “When evil did come, we turned away from fear, toward God and the values that still make our country the freest and the greatest in the world,” she says. “We must turn in that direction again.” (She does not mention that, just weeks after the shooting, she signed a bill to remove the Confederate flag from the state capitol grounds; it’s not clear why that moment didn’t make it into the ad, but there’s a good chance it’s because it would conflict with her claim about America’s sterling founding and past. She also does not mention the racial profiling of her father that she witnessed at a child, including an incident in which a pair of police officers appeared at a produce stand, and, per The New York Times, “watched him until he paid.” While explaining her decision to back the removal of the flag, she said, in 2015: “That produce stand is still there, and every time I drive by it, I still feel that pain. I realized that that Confederate flag was the same pain that so many people were feeling.”)

Meanwhile, in an apparent attempt to both showcase her time at the UN and to box the libs into a corner, Haley declares: “I have seen evil. In China, they commit genocide. In Iran, they murder their own people for challenging the government. And when a woman tells you about watching soldiers throw her baby into a fire, it puts things in perspective.” Obviously, all of the aforementioned is unspeakably awful, and no one is disputing that. But Haley seems to believe that if your country isn’t committing genocide, you really have nothing to complain about. (Note: She coincidentally does not touch on the epidemic of mass shootings in the U.S. that her party won’t do anything about, or the routine police killings of Black people, or any of the other things that occur in America that are perfectly reasonable to criticize without someone basically responding, “Go live in Iran and see how much you like it.”)

Haley ends her ad—which naturally includes a line about Joe Biden’s record being “abysmal” and the “socialist left” wanting to “rewrite history”—by telling her audience: “I don’t put up with bullies, and when you kick back it hurts them more if you’re wearing heels.” The bully line might have been a reference to China and Russia, who Haley suggests want to exploit our “vulnerability,” but it could also be a shot at her her former boss, Donald Trump—though as of Tuesday afternoon, he couldn’t even be bothered to comment on her candidacy. Which may or may not have something to do with the fact that he’s actually very happy about it. A recent poll showed Haley sinking a Ron DeSantis bid—which has not yet been announced—and handing Trump the GOP nomination.

Report: Trump wants to bring back hangings and firing Squads in his second term, is thinking about guillotines too

Donald Trump is a disturbed individual with a strong penchant for violence. The biggest supporting evidence of this would obviously be his incitement of a bloody insurrection that left multiple people dead because he couldn’t handle losing the 2020 election. But there are so many smaller ones as well, including but not limited to his public encouragement of police officers to knock suspects’ heads against the sides of their squad cars; his endorsement of assaulting reporters; his violent fantasies about punching a rally attendee in the face; and his reported desire to have the military shoot racial-justice protesters. But nothing quite compares to his latest musings about bringing back banned methods of capital punishment—and even videotaping it for public consumption.

Yes, Rolling Stone reports that the ex-president—who is hoping to become president again in 2024—has recently been telling close associates that he wants to bring back firing squads, hangings, and “possibly even the guillotine,” should he return to the White House. (He has also apparently “discussed group executions.”) According to a person familiar with the matter, late last year, Trump “privately mused” about “creating a flashy, government-backed video-ad campaign that would accompany a federal revival of these execution methods.” The videos would reportedly include “footage from these new executions, if not from the exact moments of death.”

All of this is, of course, entirely believable: At a rally in October, he told supporters the government should execute drug dealers by shooting them, and then “send the bullet to the family” and make them “pay for the cost of the bullet.” To that end, a former White House official told Rolling Stone that Trump “had a particular affinity for the firing squad, because it seemed more dramatic, rather than how we do it, putting a syringe in people and putting them to sleep.” This person added: “President Trump would explicitly say that he’d love a country that was totally an ‘eye for an eye’—that’s a direct quote—criminal-justice system, and he’d talk about how the ‘right’ way to do it is to line up criminals and drug dealers before a firing squad.“

During his time in office, Trump oversaw—and demanded—the execution of more people than any other administration in more than 120 years, and his administration executed more Americans in a one-year period than every state combined. His was also the first administration since the 1880s to put people to death during a lame-duck period, and in January 2021, when it was clear Joe Biden was going to become president, executed three people in four days. In an interview, former attorney general Bill Barr told Rolling Stone that had Trump won a second term, more people would have been put to death. Presumably, should he win in 2024, that will happen to at least some of the 44 people currently on federal death row.

A spokesperson for Trump denied to Rolling Stone that the ex-president has talked about putting out an execution video, calling it “more ridiculous and fake news from idiots who have no idea what they’re talking about.” Asked about bringing back firing squads and other methods of capital punishment, the same spokesman denied nothing, and instead referred to Trump’s remarks while announcing his candidacy for president. “Every drug dealer during his or her life, on average, will kill 500 people with the drugs they sell, not to mention the destruction of families,” he said last year. “We’re going to be asking everyone who sells drugs, gets caught selling drugs, to receive the death penalty for their pain.”

Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?

As a reminder, Trump has called Mitch McConnell a “piece of shit” and recently made racist attacks on his wife

Elsewhere!

Dianne Feinstein Says She Will Retire in 2024, Making Way for Competitive California Senate Race (VF)

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Michigan State University Shooting: “We Cannot Keep Living Like This” (VF)

MSU shooting survivor also endured horrific 2012 Sandy Hook massacre (NYP)

Flurry of anti-drag bills introduced by Republicans in 14 states (Washington Post)

Gov. Phil Murphy says New Jersey will expand AP Black history classes (NBC News)

Mike Pence to Oppose Subpoena Seeking Testimony in Jan. 6 Inquiry (NYT)

US jet missed with first missile while downing object over Lake Huron (Washington Post)

Trump forced to pay $110K fine in NY AG Tish James’s investigation (NYP)

New Mexico senator wants to make roasted chile the official state aroma (KNAU)

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