PALM BEACH – President Donald J. Trump was in a great mood Saturday night as he returned to Mar-a-Lago – and why shouldn’t he have been?
A new poll by state-run media (The New York Times) showed him leading Dementia Joe Biden in five of six battleground states. And he had just gotten a rousing reception in Kissimee at the Florida Freedom Summit.
He got back to his resort around 9:30, and was greeted in the lobby by the dinner crowd. It was the first Saturday night of “the Season” at Mar-a-Lago. A lot of the members, including us, wanted to see him, so we’d lingered over our coffee and desserts waiting for him to arrive.
He came in, smiling, greeting everyone. I shook his hand. Then I handed him a copy of my new book, Paper Boy: Read All About It! I asked if I could get a picture with him, with both of us holding the book. He was happy to oblige. (You can see Monica Crowley standing behind us.)
“When do you think DeSantis drops out?” he asked, by way of making conversation. Then he went into a story about a recent appearance by the Florida governor on one of the liberal cable channels nobody watches. (MSNBC?)
“The host introduced him as ‘DeSanctis,’” the president said, chuckling. “The guy used my name for him, ‘DeSanctis.’ You know what you call it in advertising when you give something or someone a name and it sticks? Branding. That’s what I’ve done with DeSanctimonious. I’ve branded him.”
Speaking of nicknames, I told him I liked his latest moniker for former SC Gov. Nikki Haley – “Birdbrain.”
“Yeah, the names just come to me, sometimes,” he said, casually accepting the compliment, like a baseball slugger getting congratulations after swatting a late-inning double off the wall. You know, he appreciates the kind words, but it’s for something Trump – or the baseball player – does on a regular basis.
“Birdbrain,” he said. “You know why it works? Because she’s not terribly smart.”
He mentioned how Fox News keeps trying to prop Birdbrain up, now that they’ve lost hope in DeSanctis, er DeSantis.
“They keep running polls saying she’s ‘rising,’” Trump said. “But then when you look at the actual numbers, the ‘rise’ she’s getting is coming out of DeSanctimonious, not me. And I’m still 40, 50 points ahead. So she’s only ‘rising’ to be in second place – 50 points behind me.”
But the RINOs at Fox are always warming up somebody in the bullpen, somebody just up from the bush leagues. I mentioned how Fox is already “mentioning” VA Gov. Glenn Youngkin. If he wins his legislative races Tuesday, I said, he’ll probably be in the fight by the end of the week.
Trump just smiled when I dropped Youngkin’s name.
“You know I helped him out too when he was running,” Trump said. “But they never mention that, do they?”
He talked about the Florida Freedom Summit.
“They’re on Team Trump,” he said. “Did you see what they did to Chris Christie?”
Oh yes, it had gotten a good run on social media Saturday night.
“You know how, usually when you get booed, the crowd just does it for a few seconds, and then they quiet down and stop. These people didn’t stop. They just kept booing and booing and booing until he finally had to leave the stage.”
It’s always great chatting with POTUS. Sometimes he’s more talkative, in a better mood, than he is at other moments. Saturday night he was feeling good.
Sure, he had to fly back to New York today to testify in his bogus civil case in state court. But he didn’t seem to be letting that get him down.
On Wednesday, state-run media (NBC “News”) will be running another bogus debate for the Republican also-rans, this time in Miami. Trump will be counter-programming again, with a rally of his own in nearby Hialeah.
I guess he has to pretend to still take his opponents seriously, but really, who’s going to be watching that leftist train wreck?
Back to that poll – Trump is up by 11 points, in Nevada! He’s ahead everywhere except the great cheese state of Wisconsin, and I’m not really sure he’s down there either.
It could be a fun season at Mar-A-Lago!
