When Donald Trump endorsed Rep. Mo Brooks’ Senate campaign last year, no one was especially surprised. The Alabama Republican had been a loyal ally to the former president — Brooks even delivered radical remarks at the pre-riot Jan. 6 rally — and it made sense that he’d want to reward the far-right congressman.
After all, if the GOP has a “Trump wing,” Brooks is a charter member. When launching his Senate candidacy exactly one year ago yesterday, his opening pitch to voters, made alongside Stephen Miller, couldn’t have been Trumpier: “In 2020, America suffered the worst voter fraud, and election theft, in history.”
But in the months that followed, the congressman’s campaign struggled to gain traction. Despite the former president’s backing, Brooks’ fundraising lagged and polls showed him trailing intra-party rivals. Trump made no effort to hide his dissatisfaction.
This morning, as NBC News reported, the former president gave up on his ally altogether.
Former President Donald Trump took back his endorsement of Republican Rep. Mo Brooks in the Alabama Senate race, citing the candidate’s remarks on moving past the 2020 election.
There are a few interesting angles to this, so let’s unpack the story a bit.
1. Trump’s explanation for abandoning Brooks is ridiculous.
Seven months ago, Brooks spoke at a Trump rally and encouraged attendees to “look forward” to the 2022 and 2024 election cycles, rather than dwell on 2020. He faced immediate booing — from his own constituents in his own Alabama district — for his political apostacy.
Brooks felt the need after the event to issue a “Let me be clear” message, re-endorsing conspiracy theories about “massive” 2020 election fraud that did not occur in reality.
According to Trump’s statement this morning, however, the Alabaman made a tragic error by encouraging GOP voters to focus on upcoming elections. As far as the former president is concerned, when Brooks encouraged Republicans to “look forward,” it meant he’d gone “woke,” and the message effectively derailed his Senate campaign.
In other words, as Trump sees it, the key to electoral success in 2022 is fully committing to his lies about 2020.
2. Trump’s explanation for abandoning Brooks is a thin pretext.
If the former president were seriously outraged by Brooks’ comments from last August, he wouldn’t have waited seven months to pull his endorsement. By all appearances, the actual reason Trump threw the congressman under the bus is because Brooks is on track to lose — and the former president didn’t want to be aligned with a candidate struggling in a GOP primary in one of the nation’s reddest states. In other words, Trump’s stated rationale is absurd, and it’s almost certainly not even true. His goal is to save face. 3. Trump’s approach to loyalty is entirely one-sided. It’s no secret that Trump has long been preoccupied with a twisted approach to loyalty: He’s skeptical, if not hostile, toward those who fail to genuflect around him to his satisfaction. But Brooks is the latest Republican to learn a valuable lesson: Trump sees loyalty as something he’s supposed to receive, not bestow. The congressman isn’t the first to have this experience with the former president, and he very likely won’t be the last.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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