WASHINGTON _ Chris McDaniel says President Donald Trump is a prisoner of the Republican political establishment.
And Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith is hammering McDaniel over it.
That's dangerous political territory for McDaniel, because Trump is very popular with Republicans.
Hyde-Smith and McDaniel are battling for Republican votes in Mississippi's U.S. Senate race. McDaniel has asserted that Trump was pressured to endorse Hyde-Smith by the Republican Party establishment, notably Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
"He endorsed me three times in 2014; so far he's only endorsed her once," McDaniel, a conservative state senator who in 2014 narrowly lost to Sen. Thad Cochran , said of Trump in an interview Friday on MSNBC. "It appears there is something is in play; it appears the establishment has a game in play there," he said.
McDaniel said later that Trump "endorsed John McCain and Paul Ryan for the same reasons. Our goal is to make sure that Donald Trump is his own man, and never has to cut these deals with Mitch McConnell again."
McDaniel tried to offer Trump some praise.
"Trump is strong," McDaniel said on MSNBC. "But he also needs 51 votes in the Senate. He's trying to do the best he can to govern with a slim majority in the Senate. But ultimately, he's going to be much more pleased with conservatives that will actually fight for a living as opposed to those who will lay down and take shots."
Melissa Scallan, a spokeswoman for Hyde-Smith's campaign, said, "Chris McDaniel has done nothing but insult the president in the last two weeks. First he said the president was manipulated into endorsing Cindy Hyde-Smith, then he said Donald Trump was forced into it."
McDaniel, in an interview last month, suggested that Trump was pressured into endorsing Hyde-Smith, a former Democrat, by McConnell.
"The people of Mississippi understand that President Trump occasionally has to cut deals by Mitch McConnell," he said. "How else can you explain that he endorsed Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan and John McCain? These are individuals who are hostile toward a President Trump, yet President Trump endorsed them."
He repeated similar lines at a town hall Thursday in Oxford, Miss. Hyde-Smith's campaign called McDaniel's comments insulting to Trump, who endorsed McDaniel's 2014 Senate candidacy.
McDaniel didn't back down from his remarks Friday.
"To anyone that says that President Trump isn't being pressured by the swamp to cut deals with Mitch McConnell, I would ask them point blank to kindly explain why he would have endorsed his arch enemy, Mitt Romney," McDaniel said in an email Friday. "Mitt Romney called Donald Trump every name in the book, and yet when it came time for Romney to run for Senate, Donald Trump endorsed him."
Scallan said McDaniel is having "a difficult time accepting" that he didn't get Trump's backing.
"He is clearly in a state of denial, but I don't know anyone who thinks the president can be forced to endorse anyone," Scallan said Thursday.
McDaniel, Hyde-Smith, and Democrat Mike Espy are running in a Nov. 6 special election to replace Cochran, who retired from the Senate in April, citing health reasons.
Hyde-Smith, Mississippi's former agriculture commissioner, was appointed by Republican Gov. Phil Bryant to fill Cochran's seat until the election.
If none of the candidates gets over 50 percent of the vote, the top two finishers will face each other in a Nov. 27 runoff.
