Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) is conceivably looking to trounce President Trump in 2020.
So why is he being so demented about it?
Back in March, Booker demanded that Trump condemn white supremacy.
This was post-Charlottesville, when in 2017, a woman was killed while people protested a white supremacy rally. Trump infamously said there were very good people on “both sides” of the chaos. White supremacist James Fields was convicted of murder for plowing a car into a crowd and killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer.
On Monday, Booker walked back his desire for Trump to condemn white supremacy by getting angry when Trump condemned white supremacy in the wake of two weekend mass shootings. “In one voice our nation must condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy,” the president said in a speech Monday at the White House. “These sinister ideologies must be defeated.”
When CNN anchor Kate Bolduan asked Booker if he welcomed Trump’s statements, he replied, “No.”
Booker further demeaned Trump, tweeting, “The president is weak. And wrong. White supremacy is not a mental illness, and guns are a tool that white supremacists use to fulfill their hate.”
On Sunday, the presidential hopeful tweeted something resembling a sermon: “One of the lessons in my faith is that you reap what you sow. When Donald Trump uses words like ‘infestation,’ ‘invasion’ and ‘shithole countries’— When he refuses to condemn Neo-Nazis and white supremacists — Trump is giving license to this kind of violence. He’s responsible.”
The senator was referring to Trump’s incendiary comments last weekend when he called House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings “a racist” and trashed Baltimore as a “rat and rodent infested mess.”
Booker isn’t getting butchered alone. CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell is also getting her ass handed to her after saying that Trump’s message has shifted. “That was a step further than the president has taken in the past,” O’Donnell said before reading out Trump’s quote.
Matthew Dowd, chief political correspondent for ABC News, took a personal shot at O’Donnell, tweeting, “Norah, you are better than this. The president must take responsibility for what he has done. I see none of that here. Over and over again many in the media make this same mistake.”
Ex-CNNer Soledad O’Brien, host of “Matter of Fact With Soledad O’Brien,” cracked, “This is bullshit, ladies. Do better.”
WaPo‘s Jennifer Rubin, a notorious Trump hater, seconded these remarks, saying, “Reporters lauding him for mentioning white supremacy are part of the problem.”
Well, lauding might be strong. She called it a “step further.”
And maybe for Trump, that’s significant.