The stable genius bragged about how he confronted the tough questions on his mental test-- which basically ask to differentiate between a duck and an elephant and to recognize which hands of a clock show noon and which show 9:30-- and did better than anyone else in history. "Let me tell you, those last ten questions are hard. There aren’t a lot of people that can do that," he told a roomful of drooling RNC officials meeting at Trumpanzee International Hotel in DC.Now, remember when he offered Ohio Governor John Kasich the vice presidential spot and sweetened the offer by having Jared tell him he'd be in charge of domestic policy and foreign policy? He seems to have changed his mind about Kasich. At the same RNC meeting he "tore into" him-- by name.
At one point in the meeting, Trump brought onstage Bob Paduchik, who the president selected to serve as Republican National Committee co-chair after overseeing Trump’s successful 2016 campaign in Ohio. One person who was in attendance recalled the president heaping praise on Paduchik for helping him win the critical swing state, where he’d faced opposition from the governor. The president recounted the Ohio campaign and how he ultimately won the state.A Kasich representative did not respond to a request for comment. White House spokespersons also did not respond to a request for comment.The Trump-Kasich feud has been simmering ever since the 2016 campaign. At one point, the Trump campaign blasted the Ohio governor for refusing to attend the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, where then-candidate Trump was given the party’s nomination.After Trump won the election, he orchestrated a takeover of the state party, removing Kasich ally Matt Borges as state party chair and replacing him with a pro-Trump figure, Jane Timken. Then-President-elect Trump personally made calls into the state to lobby for Timken to get the post.Kasich has been promoting his newest book, Two Paths: America Divided or United-- a media tour that has led to speculation that he’s considering a 2020 primary bid to Trump.The remarks came on the second night of the RNC’s annual winter meeting. The president’s speech was to be pooled by the media, yet those covering the speech were escorted out a few minutes after he began talking....Trump veered from talking about Kasich to describing in detail how he recently aced a mental acuity test-- an examination, he said, most members of the media wouldn’t pass. At another point, he described Evan McMullin, a fierce Trump critic who waged a 2016 independent bid, as a “clown.”He also argued that he would have won New Hampshire in 2016 had it not been for voter fraud, saying that liberal voters were bussed in from Connecticut and Massachusetts.
What brought on the latest attacks against Kasich? Could be any number of things. Who really knows how that crackpot's mind works? But, remember, Trump campaigned in states with big prescription drug problems-- West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee-- by promising to address the problem head on. He hasn't, not at all. The other day he hinted that the solution is for those addicted to drugs to overdose and die, ending the problem. Meanwhile Kasich is actually taking steps to address it rationally (see yesterday's video below). And nothing infuriates Trump more than rationality. It challenges his entire worldview and his ridiculously constructed legitimacy.