Trump blasts ‘wacky’ Democrat donor
WASHINGTON: Donald Trump lashed out Friday at a highprofile Democratic megadonor, calling him ‘wacky and totally unhinged’ after apparently seeing his television ad calling for the president’s impeachment.
“Wacky, totally unhinged Tom Steyer, who has been fighting me and my ‘Make America Great Again’ agenda from beginning, never wins elections!” Trump wrote in a tweet targeting the California billionaire.
Steyer is a former hedge fund manager-turned-environmental activist who is one of the Democratic Party’s biggest donors, pouring tens of millions of dollars of his own money into grassroots voter outreach operations and recent campaigns of several Democrats, including Hillary Clinton’s last year.
“He’s brought us to the brink of nuclear war, obstructed justice at the FBI and, in direct violation of the Constitution, has taken money from foreign governments and threatened to shut down news organisations that report the truth,” Steyer says in his ad, part of a multimillion-dollar campaign urging Americans to petition members of Congress to impeach Trump.
“A Republican Congress once impeached a president for far less. Yet today, people in Congress and his own administration know that this president is a clear and present danger, who’s mentally unstable and armed with nuclear weapons.”
The one-minute ad, part of a US$10 million campaign reportedly funded directly by Steyer, has been running for days.
But it may have caught Trump’s attention when it ran during ‘Fox Friends,’ a morning show that Trump is known to watch.
The three-hour Fox talk show begins at 6am; Trump tweeted about Steyer at 6.58am.
The ad, which describes Steyer as an ‘American citizen,’ directs viewers to a website where they can sign an impeachment petition.
Steyer himself has not ruled out a run for political office, including possibly a challenge to Senate incumbent Dianne Feinstein in 2018 or a presidential run in 2020.