A Republican pollster says that the party mocks Donald Trump as a “child” in private and is “laughing” at the one-term president.
Frank Luntz made the comment in the wake of New Hampshire’s Republican governor, Chris Sununu, telling the annual Gridiron Club dinner that Mr Trump is “f***ing crazy.”
“The press often will ask me if I think Donald Trump is crazy. And I’ll say it this way: I don’t think he’s so crazy that you could put him in a mental institution. But I think if he were in one, he ain’t getting out!” Mr Sununu told guests in his speech at the Washington DC event.
And Mr Luntz said he was not surprised at the comment.
“I don’t know a single Republican who was surprised by what Sununu said. He said what they were thinking,” he told The Daily Beast.
Mr Luntz added that while senior GOP figures were happy to joke about Mr Trump in private, they would not come out in public and do so.
“They won’t say it (in public), but behind his back they think he’s a child. They’re laughing at him. That’s what made (Sununu’s comments) significant,” he said.
And he added: “Trump isn’t the same man he was a year ago.
“Even many Republicans are tired of going back and rehashing the 2020 election. Everybody else has moved on, and in Washington everyone believes he lost the election.”
Mr Luntz is not the only GOP figure who thinks that Mr Trump’s grip on the party may be weakening, with strategist Susan Del Percio saying that his rallies appeared to be shrinking in size.
“Donald Trump? Yes, he can bring out those people, but those crowds are getting smaller and people aren’t buying into it, mostly because Republicans want to move on. They don’t want to talk about the big lie,” she said on MSNBC.
“The people of this country don’t want to hear about it anymore.”
