The former president issued mock endorsements to two of his fiercest critics. Carolyn Maloney and Dan Goldman were quick to reject them.
Former president Donald J. Trump made unwelcome endorsements on Wednesday evening, sarcastically offering his support to candidates who once helped lead impeachment efforts against him.
Mr. Trump’s unexpected meddling in two New York City congressional primaries drew immediate denunciations from the candidates, Rep. Carolyn Maloney and Dan Goldman, a lawyer.
Writing on Truth Social, a little-used social media platform he founded in October 2021 after Twitter banned him, Mr. Trump lavished praise on Ms. Maloney and Mr. Goldman.
With Wednesday’s mock endorsements the former president again demonstrated his penchant for inserting himself into as many political debates as possible, even while being besieged on multiple fronts.
Each candidate played a role in the first of Mr. Trump’s two impeachments. Ms. Maloney served as acting chairwoman of the House Oversight Committee, and Mr. Goldman was the inquiry’s chief investigator.
Both are now competing to represent newly drawn districts in the city, and neither wasted time in recoiling from the former president’s sarcastic expression of favor.
Mr. Trump described Ms. Maloney, who is running in the new 12th Congressional District in Manhattan, as “a kind and wonderful person who has always said terrific things about me and will support me no matter what I do.”
“Carolyn has my Complete and Total Endorsement,” he wrote. “She will never let our Conservative Movement down!”
Mr. Trump described Mr. Goldman, who is running in the new 10th Congressional District in Manhattan and Brooklyn, as “highly intelligent.” He also said the former impeachment investigator would assist congressional Republicans in their efforts to defeat “the Radical Left Democrats, who he knows are destroying the country.”
Mr. Goldman quickly dismissed the endorsement as an act of online trolling. He said the former president was “pretending to endorse” him.
“True to form, Trump is trying to meddle in an election,” Mr. Goldman wrote on Twitter. “This is a pathetic attempt at fooling Democrats who are far smarter than Trump is, and it’s clear that only one candidate in NY-10 is living rent-free in Trump’s head.”
For her part, Ms. Maloney described the endorsement as “laughable.”
“Trump doesn’t respect women,” she wrote on Twitter. “He instigated the attacks on January 6th and claimed that the 2020 election was a big lie.”
“He should be more concerned about the investigation I’m leading as Chair of the Oversight Committee into the storage of his classified documents at Mar-a-Lago,” she added. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll pass.”
Mr. Trump has a long history of using social media to promote his political objectives, mock his adversaries, hock his products and seek attention from voters and the news media.
But his ability to do so has been severely constrained since January 2021, when he was removed from a broad range of social media sites, including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
The companies said they banned him for his posts about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, during which five people were killed and hundreds more were injured, and for his false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.
The endorsements Mr. Trump made on Wednesday appeared on Truth Social, an app that has struggled to attract users. In April, MarketWatch reported that the site has roughly 513,000 daily users, making it a relative ghost town compared with the more than 200 million users who log onto Twitter each day.
Nonetheless, some Democrats seized on Mr. Trump’s “endorsements.”
In a statement on Wednesday, Suraj Patel, a lawyer who is running against Ms. Maloney and Representative Jerry Nadler in the 12th District, said Mr. Trump’s posts on Truth Social were proof that he preferred an older generation of Democratic leadership.
Mr. Patel is 38, and both of his opponents are in their 70s.
“Donald Trump is scared of a younger, more dynamic Democratic Party,” said Mr. Patel. “He knows how much more effective a new generation of diverse, energetic Democrats will be in stopping his movement.”
Representative Mondaire Jones, an incumbent who has struggled to gain traction in the 10th District since moving there from the suburban district he has represented since 2021, also embraced Mr. Trump’s sarcastic endorsements. He repeatedly cited the former president’s posts at a debate on Wednesday night.
“Mr. Goldman is fulfilling Donald Trump’s vision of him being a moderate person who is attempting to defeat progressives in this race,” said Mr. Jones. Later, he added that Mr. Goldman “was the first candidate on this stage to be endorsed by Donald J. Trump.”
Dana Rubinstein contributed reporting.
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
