VICTORIOUS IN DEFEAT

Trump Pretends He Didn’t Just Suffer Humiliating Election Loss

The president is acting as if the man who won the GOP gubernatorial primary in Georgia was his preferred candidate all along.

Donald Trump is picking up the pieces after a humiliating electoral defeat in Georgia by ever-so-subtly pretending he didn’t throw his full weight behind the losing side.

“Congratulations to Rick Jackson, who very successfully campaigned on being ‘TRUMP’, and won,” the president wrote in a glowing Truth Social post late Tuesday night. “He will be your next Governor of Georgia. Can’t wait!”

He followed up with a second post about 90 minutes later, attaching a photo of Jackson and his family. “Rick Jackson ran a great TRUMP Campaign. Very smart!” Trump wrote. “Was with me on Saturday Night making a pitch. Amazing!!! He won against a great guy, Burt Jones, who has a fantastic future!!!”

Social media users could be forgiven for thinking the president had actually endorsed Jackson, a billionaire healthcare executive, rather than Lt. Gov Burt Jones in Tuesday’s race to become the Republican candidate for November’s gubernatorial election in Georgia. But Trump did endorse Jones—emphatically.

“There’s a lot of confusion. Everyone’s saying I endorsed them. I didn’t; I endorsed a man named Burt Jones, your lieutenant governor,” the president told a tele-rally last month. He further called Jones “an incredible guy who has my complete and total endorsement in the race.” Jones still lost, taking 47 percent of the vote to Jackson’s 53 percent.

Also up for debate is how far Jackson really won off the back of a “TRUMP campaign.” The billionaire spent the primary under fire from Georgia’s most conservative Republicans for a donation history that included such notable Trump enemies as Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, Nikki Haley, and Liz Cheney.

He tried to paper over the ledger with a $1 million donation to a pro-Trump super PAC—cutting that check only once the 2024 election was already done—but conceded at a debate, “I was late to the Trump train.”

The billionaire might have responded to attacks on his loyalty by promising voters he’d be “Trump’s favorite governor.” But that didn’t stop Trump’s actual pick, Jones, and his campaign from spending the race branding Jackson and the rest of the field “Never-Trump RINOs pretending to be something they’re not.”

GOP strategists have since told Politico that Jackson’s victory owed no small debt to the estimated $100 million of personal cash he poured into his bid, which “sucked up all the political oxygen” and made it all but impossible for other candidates, Jones included, to break through.

Endorsements are a touchy subject for Trump. The president is fond of trumpeting his backing as a kind of Midas touch for GOP hopefuls and a kiss of death for MAGA’s nemeses.

“Everybody I endorse wins. I mean, everybody,” he told The New York Post’s Pod Force One podcast at the White House earlier this month. “You saw that, right? Last week? Every single person I endorse wins.”

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But Trump’s endorsements have arguably lost some of their magic ahead of what promises to be a bruising battle for Republicans to retain control of both the House and the Senate in November’s midterm elections. The president’s approval ratings have plummeted to 38 percent, a second-term low, as Democrats ratchet up an almost 7-point lead on the generic congressional ballot.

The latest rebuttal came in Iowa, where Trump’s choice for governor, three-term Rep. Randy Feenstra, conceded on June 2 to newcomer Zach Lahn—a farmer with no political background. It was the most prominent primary defeat for a Trump pick in years.

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The president’s response to the Iowa drubbing ran along much the same lines as his spin on the Georgia race, making out that Lahn was the real MAGA candidate all along and telling reporters that “the man running against [Feenstra] was all Trump.” He later added that he had not been fed “proper information” and “probably would have endorsed the other person,” if he had known more.

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment on this story.

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