The Washington Post is out with a new look at Republican House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy's lavish attempts to cater to President Idiot Manchild's every whim. Including, of course, sorting through Starburst candies to present the Moron in Chief with only the flavors he likes best.
Days later, the No. 2 Republican in the House — known for his relentless cultivation of political alliances — bought a plentiful supply of Starbursts and asked a staffer to sort through the pile, placing only those two flavors in a jar. McCarthy made sure his name was on the side of the gift, which was delivered to a grinning Trump, according to a White House official.
This is, we will note, probably a safer play than catering to Trump's other lusts, like his now-known penchant for soliciting sex from porn stars, but it still, ahem, "illustrates the length that many top congressional Republicans have gone to build a rapport with [the idiot manchild]." McCarthy is now apparently known throughout the Capitol for his obsequious toadying—sorry, for his robust efforts to cater to his unfit party leader's need for constant flattery and attention. He is using this in an effort to, ahem, control the unfit manchild's temper.
According to two people familiar with the presentation, Trump appreciated McCarthy’s use of pictures and charts rather than a memo. It was a basic and “foundational” presentation that explained midterm politics to Trump, in the words of one senior official. A White House official said Trump may not have listened to others as well as he listened to McCarthy, which is why the tough love needed to come from him.
Oh good, the sitting president is having our national election system explained to him in a custom-crafted picture book. Hopefully it came with a set of crayons so that Donald could occupy himself during his evening/morning/late afternoon executive time.
Anyway, the long and short of the Post report is that behind the scenes, McCarthy has been positioning himself as the Idiot Whisperer, a man who will never, ever criticize Trump and who has made himself valuable as someone Trump can go to to have the news of the day explained to him in small flattering words. And it has been working; by never criticizing Trump, he has been granted special status in the White House that rude, big-word-using meanies like Paul Ryan could only aspire to.
There is no possible way McCarthy's enabling of the demonstrably unfit and temperamental leader could ever backfire, of course. And it's interesting to see how, even as a lone Republican senator stands up to object to Trump’s use of the rhetoric of dictatorships to undermine the nation's free press, the House Majority Leader is tasking staffers with going through bags of candy to present the president with only the flavors he prefers.