Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) says President Donald Trump’s bizarre end to his Republican midterm convention on Thursday, where he led the audience in a pledge to him, is a sign of panic.
“It’s definitely a president trying to hit the panic button because he knows his poll numbers are in the tank. He knows that Americans have seen through the act that he put forward,” Jayapal said on MS Now’s “The Assignment” Saturday. “I mean, this is an incompetent, corrupt cult leader president. He promised a lot of things.”
Jayapal’s harsh criticism of the president comes days after the unprecedented Republican convention, where he asked his supporters on Thursday to raise their right hands and recite: “I pledge to the greatest president in the history of the United States.”
“That I will go out with my family, my friends, I’ll do it anyway, I don’t care if I’m registered or not. I’m going to try and cheat like hell like they do,” he continued. “There’s never been bigger cheaters, they don’t care. I am going to go out and I am going to get my friends, my family, and we are going to vote on November 3rd or we are going to vote before that.”
The Democratic congresswoman told host Antonia Hylton that it’s dangerous “to have a president who is asking people to pledge allegiance to him, supposedly endowed by God to deliver for them when they have seen over and over again that this man is delivering for no one except him and his billionaire cronies and his family.”
The president is facing sinking approval ratings in his second term as Americans feel the impact of his war in Iran. Some of Trump’s most vocal supporters during his presidential campaign have split from him over unfulfilled promises.
“I think the next Republican nominee is going to have to decide if they are going to continue to pledge loyalty to the cult of Donald Trump, or if they are actually going to represent Republicans across the country who want something very different,” Jayapal said.
She told Hylton “he’s hitting the panic button because he knows he’s in trouble.”
After several unfulfilled promises, Trump now faces skepticism and backlash after he promised every American $5,000 if Republicans win the midterm elections. Jayapal, however, said, “It has a chance in hell.”
“The same thing when he says he’s going to end the war and gas prices are going to go plummeting after the midterm elections. I’m sorry, but if he could do that, why wouldn’t he have done that now, or three months ago, or six months ago?” she argued.