There's a potential new Michael Whatley mini-scandal playing out in North Carolina.
Yesterday, North Carolina conservative politics site The Daily Haymaker posted audio of Whatley offering about the lamest explanation possible for why he's MAGA.
Cue the tape...
The transcript:
“And President Trump right now is a pretty easy target. A lot of people are beating him up, right? They’re saying, ‘Oh yeah, you know, Whatley, he’s Trump’s guy.’ I am, you know, because the alternative is worse, and we got to show that contrast.”
This audio is now causing a stir in North Carolina GOP circles because of the "he's Trump's guy" comment paired with that "because."
On first glance, it reads like Whatley is just saying what everyone else is thinking: Politics is a choice between two options, and my goodness, Democrats really are terrible, so heck yes, I'm a Republican.
But according to a source who was present when it was said, "some folks in the room were stunned by the comment" because the specific phraseology actually indicated that the only reason Whatley is "Trump's guy" is because Trump is the lesser of two evils, not because he actually likes or agrees with him.
That's something a lot of Republicans– especially RINO-friendly milquetoast North Carolina Episcopalians who attend woke churches and liked Liddy Dole just fine– may think.
But it's not what MAGAs think. And it's not what Trump wants to hear.
Trump wants himself and his movement to be loved because they are awesome and amazing, not because they're marginally better than Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Gavin Newsom, and Roy Cooper.
Our source, "couldnt [sic] see everyone but there was some cringing.”
And this would be why.
All of this reminds us of a 2020 controversy out in Western North Carolina, where Mark Meadows' handpicked replacement got herself in a lot of trouble when audio was uncovered of her talking like a Ted Cruz-loving Never Trumper (which she certainly was in 2016, anyway) about the big man himself.
Here's the transcript of those remarks:
“I’m a never Trump person. I don’t want Trump. I’m never Trump, not going to vote for him, and I want him taken off that palm card or I’m not helping you guys.”
At the time, Bennett said she was being facetious and that she was "role playing" a Never Trumper, not being one, having become a MAGA at some indeterminate point post-2016.
But knowing more than a few female Ted Cruz diehards who opposed Trump the whole way through 2016, and continued to oppose him well into 2020 and beyond (cough, cough Amanda Carpenter, cough, cough, Mia Love, cough, cough Carly Fiorina, cough, cough Carly Fiorina onetime consultant Liz Mair), Bennett's comments always struck us as more typical of them than a Never Trumper role play actor.
And the history of this kind of thing in North Carolina–plus Whatley's own history of running away from Trump, and his own background as a sort of environmentalist Mitt Romney-George H W Bush hybrid– makes us just a tad skeptical here, and inclined to think that, yeah, maybe he's not a MAGA diehard Trump fanatic after all, and all his Trump proverbial behind-kissing has been more about political expediency than true believerism.
As a reminder, Whatley was chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party when Trump hand-picked him to take over the Republican National Committee in 2024. Whatley became chairman alongside Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump as co-chair as Trump installed his preferred leadership team at the RNC.
(Reminder: Lara Trump was originally mentioned as the preferred candidate for this state; no doubt she'd exhibit more Trump loyalty in the gig, though her "off-the-record" gaffes caught on audio might be even more entertaining).
When Whatley launched his campaign for North Carolina’s open U.S. Senate seat last year, he did so with Trump’s endorsement and made his relationship with the president a centerpiece of his campaign.
At his campaign kickoff in Gastonia, Whatley repeatedly invoked Trump and told supporters:
“With the complete and total endorsement of President Donald Trump, I am running to be next Senator from the great state of North Carolina.”
But by this summer, Whatley wasn’t talking about Trump nearly as much. And as Caleb reported, he's been erasing Trump from the campaign here and there, while also of course appearing alongside him at the Gastonia rally.
In some ways, what we're really seeing with all this "does he love Trump or does he want to dump him" campaign schizophrenia is a case study in the perils of trying to be all things to all people when running under the GOP banner in a swing state where your political benefactor has an almost rock-bottom approval rating.
And that this state loves a good surreptitious audio recording and leak. North Carolina candidates beware.
Comments ()