‘They are dumb enough to believe him’: GOP strategist compares Trump’s base to snakehandling preachers
Republican strategist Steve Schmidt urged President Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan to fight back against the “Breitbart wing” of the GOP before they lose their legislative majority — and their jobs.
Schmidt said former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, who returned to his old job overseeing Breitbart News, didn’t want to compromise with conservatives, but instead wants his right-wing allies to dominate the Republican Party.
“(Ryan) doesn’t understand the nature of the fight he’s in,” Schmidt told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “He’s weak and doesn’t understand how to wield political power. He has a powerful office, but he doesn’t understand, I think, the nature of the fight he’s in.”
Schmidt mocked immigration hardliners as gullible for believing Trump’s campaign promises, and he compared Rep. Steve King (R-IA) to a snakehandling Pentecostal preachers.
“The most amusing thing, it’s just kind of — thinking about this last night when it broke, I said, are these guys, the Steve Kings of the world, I said is it possible these people are dumb enough to believe — like the guy who picked up the rattlesnake this summer and kissed it on the nose and got bit in the face,” Schmidt said. “Are they so dumb they didn’t see this coming? That they believed Donald Trump believed this stuff?”