President Trump’s dismissive and disrespectful treatment of his nominal political ally Senator Martha McSally in Arizona on Wednesday was cast by local media as a humiliating coda to her difficult campaign.
But it said just as much about Mr. Trump’s own stumble down the stretch, exacerbated by an unwillingness to take even the most basic steps to improve his shaky standing among women voters.
All Mr. Trump had to do in Goodyear, Ariz., was introduce Ms. McSally, a fellow Republican, and smile when she offered a unity pitch. No go.
After starting by saying she was “respected by everybody,” he instantly proved that she was not. “Martha, come up just fast! Fast! Fast! Come on. Quick! You got one minute!” he shouted, as some, but not all, in the crowd laughed. “One minute, Martha! They don’t want to hear this, Martha. Come on. Let’s go. Quick, quick, quick, quick. Come on. Let’s go.”
Ms. McSally ran on the stage, elbow-bumped the president, and professed herself “proud” of him, after declining to do so at a debate earlier this month. This might have been the reason he was so eager to see her come and go. (Ms. McSally wrote in an op-ed this week that she was supporting Mr. Trump’s re-election.)
Ms. McSally, a former fighter pilot appointed to her current seat, trails her Democratic opponent, Mark Kelly, in polls, and she is underperforming Mr. Trump in Arizona. But Mr. Trump is also underperforming his 2016 self in a state he won by 3.5 points four years ago.
A big part of the reason, in the Sun Belt and elsewhere, is the defection of white suburban women, who have been driven away by a number of factors, particularly his failure to manage the coronavirus pandemic and the way that he speaks about women.
He did little to address either vulnerability on Wednesday.
“Biden and the Democrat socialists will delay the vaccine, prolong the pandemic, shutter your schools and shut down our country,” Trump told the audience, tightly packed and intermittently masked. “And your state is open right? Your state is nice and open.”
Then came the McSally moment.
The clip, which dominated local news coverage and social media, provided a brutal visual representation of Mr. Trump’s core political problem. Here he was physically rushing a woman off the stage, and placing a strict time limit on her opportunity to speak — a limit he has never imposed on himself.
What happened next underscored the slight even more vividly. After Ms. McSally spoke, Mr. Trump invited three male out-of-state supporters — Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California and Senator Mike Lee of Utah — onstage for unrushed appearances that focused on their adulation of him.
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What Trump’s disrespectful treatment of Martha McSally says about his own struggles. - The New York Times
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