Told You So: The Trump Betrayal Train Continues Flying Off Rails at Record Pace

I hate when people say “I don’t want to say ‘I told you so,’ but …”; I absolutely want to say that. I told you so. That is what I want to say. I told you so. I told you so. I told you so.Trump is not going to keep those dumb fake campaign promises he pretended to make while suckering you into voting for him. He’s not going to do it. And I freaking told you so. Here are just the latest examples.

The Wall, The Deportations, The Muslim Immigration Ban

Top Trump surrogate Rep. Chris Collins, just a few days ago, let slip that the wall and the deportations are figments of his audience’s imagination. As I and so many others have said 10 billion times, of course he was just saying what people wanted to hear. He was saying whatever he could to get elected. The plan all along was to just blame congress when, as intended, he fails to follow through. And, of course, we were totally right.

Listen to Trump respond to a question about Collins’ “virtual wall” and “rhetorical deportations” statement in an interview with Brett Baier that aired last night.

“Look, everything, honestly, is going to be up .. we’re going to negotiate. I can’t make these decisions myself. We have congress … we have to deal with a lot of people. I mean, you know, I can’t just take executive orders like Obama and .. it’s me, and lots of congressmen and lots of senators and lots of everything. So I would say that certain things will be changed, certain things will be, stay exactly the same.”

Trump says he can’t just order people to do things, but that rather it’s a negotiation. That’s a far cry from the tough talk of his campaign up until now. When he said “they’ll do as I tell them” at a GOP debate, his supporters online went into paroxysms of ecstasy. Social media is filled with imagery of Trump as the dictator in chief, making America great and white again. His supporters demand allegiance and obedience and they think he does too. Now watch them pivot as they try to defend his backtracking as something nuanced. “He has to work with Congress, that’s the law,” they’ll say. The same people who so recently swore loyalty oaths and daily pledge their undying servitude to the man they envision as the embodiment of iron will.

Money, Money, Money, Moooneyyy

That’s not the only new news, though. Unbelievably, there’s still more on the funding front, via RedState Editor Leon Wolf:

Donald Trump insists he personally funded his primary campaign, but a new report filed by his presidential campaign tells a different story.

Trump has now spent a total of $43 million, according to his filing with the Federal Election Commission made available Saturday, and all of it is still structured as a loan to the campaign. That means he can be legally reimbursed for his spending, with new campaign donations, until August.

The whole self-funding thing was a lie in the first place, but as I’ve explained, it was nevertheless a chief selling point of his campaign. “By self-funding my campaign, I am not controlled by my donors, special interests or lobbyists. I am only working for the people of the U.S.” he said on Facebook in September. Of course, he actually did raise money, several million in fact. And then he decided it was time to go big for the general election, as we covered here and here.

And now look. He literally says “loaned” the campaign. Not “gave” or “donated” but that he “loaned” his campaign the money. And though his mouthpieces claim he won’t try to get that money back, he has refused to take the opportunity of his FEC filing to actually do so. He left it open.

The campaign’s new report, required by federal election law, reveals that contrary to Trump’s statement, his campaign continues to treat the money as a loan — not a contribution.

The campaign could convert any or all of the loans to a donation with the stroke of a pen.

But they haven’t.

The Two Trumps

Donald Trump has made it clear, as have his surrogates and his talking heads, that everything he’s said or promised up to this point is negotiable. Iron will indeed.

It has always been a strange delusion: Trump the dictator, Trump the negotiator. The unlikely pairing. On the one hand a Putin- or Mussolini-like figure exacting vengeance, and on the other a typical politician working with congress on both sides of the aisle to find out what they’ll give him. Which is it, Trump fans?

Will the savior of America stomp onto the stage, kick down the doors, and clean house? Or will he sit in leather office chair at a conference table and give ground to the House? Tell us. Or better yet, tell yourself. Because right now, he’s on a backtrack bender. You better decide if you’re betrayed by it, or if you’re simply going to change your tune.

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