DONALDISM/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Long before Donald Trump ever became a credible presidential candidate, let alone the commander in chief, the former reality TV star was guided by one animating principle: ‘If they screw you, screw them back 10 times as hard.’
Trump’s desire for revenge played out in public on Thursday when, in an effort to spook conservative members of his own party, the President lumped the Freedom Caucus — a collection of conservative Republican lawmakers — with Democrats and pledged to ‘fight them’ in 2018.
Trump and his White House feel betrayed by the conservative Republicans. Many backed Trump early in the 2016 campaign and stood by him during some of the toughest trials of the campaign. But when it came to passing his first legislative goal — health care reform — the conservatives revolted en masse and killed the bill.
Trump’s top emissaries also made this case directly to lawmakers. Rep. Mark Sanford, a South Carolina Republican, told Charleston’s Post and Courier Thursday that White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney, a former Palmetto State congressman, told him: ‘The President asked me to look you square in the eyes and to say that he hoped that you voted ‘no’ on this bill so he could run (a Republican primary challenger) against you in 2018.’ “
-Dan Merica,”Trump’s love of getting even comes to Washington’,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, March 31, 2017 12:57pm