Donald Trump is lashing out against billionaire liberal donor Tom Steyer, slamming him as a “crazed & stumbling lunatic” — just days after an ardent Trump supporter allegedly mailed a bomb to Steyer.
The president took aim at Steyer in a tweet on Sunday, calling him “Wacky Tom Steyer” after the billionaire appeared on CNN’s State of the Union . As Business Insider noted, Trump appeared to be getting out ahead of a potential presidential run for Steyer.
Trump claimed that Steyer “comes off as a crazed & stumbling lunatic who should be running out of money pretty soon.”
He added, “As bad as their field is, if he is running for president, the Dems will eat him alive!”
In his appearance, Steyer criticized a tweet from House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy that singled out three Jewish liberal donors — Steyer, George Soros, and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg — and claimed they were trying to “buy” the midterm elections. Steyer referred to the now-deleted tweet as a “straight-up anti-Semitic move.” Others had made a similar criticism, calling it irresponsible especially in the wake of the bombs sent to both Soros and Steyer.
Tom Steyer has been one of the most vocal figures on the left calling for Donald Trump’s impeachment. The hedge fund manager has released a series of ads calling for impeachment and has attracted more than 5 million to his campaign, Need to Impeach. As Bloomberg News noted, Steyer has already pledged $40 million in Need to Impeach along with $30 million for efforts to turn out millennials to vote in midterm elections.
Steyer’s campaign has actually drawn some criticism from the left, who see his campaign as misguided and have pushed Democrats away from trying to impeach Donald Trump before the Russia investigation is completed.
“Steyer impeachment ads seem to me more of a vanity project,” wrote David Axelrod, Barack Obama’s former campaign manager, in a tweet last year . “It is-at least [at] this point-an unhelpful message.”
Before his criticism of Tom Steyer, Donald Trump had come under fire for what critics see as promoting violence against his targets. This week, a series of top Democrats were targets for mail bombs, with the suspect identified as an ardent supporter of Donald Trump. And on Saturday, a man opened fire in a synagogue in Pittsburgh, killing 11. The suspect’s online postings show that he had bought into conspiracy theories claiming that a migrant caravan moving through Mexico toward the United States has been funded by George Soros.
