Trump just tried to dish “dirt” on a Democratic Congressman’s past dealings with him and it immediately backfired

President Trump received his latest round of bad news yesterday when Representative Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, called for Special Counsel Robert Mueller to testify before the committee about his now-completed investigation, an investigation which Trump’s own Attorney General William Barr has conceded did not explicitly exonerate the president.

On top of that news, it was revealed that Trump referred to Nadler as “fat Jerry” during a meeting with Republicans last month, an interesting insult to be sure coming from a man said to weigh 243 pounds. Trump mocked Nadler’s weight loss surgery and said that he is still overweight. There is little love lost between these men, a fact that was compounded by a Twitter attack unleashed by the president early this morning.

President Trump claimed that he and Nadler “got along very well” during the zoning and building process for the project, which seems to contradict the first tweet in which he said Nadler opposed him and tried to stop the development. He ended his tweet with a muddled message about how his assuming the presidency reignited animosities between Nadler and himself, but that he hopes things will “go well for everyone” and that “only time will tell!”

It should come as little surprise that our infamously mendacious commander-in-chief is misrepresenting his history with Nadler by intentionally leaving out the reasons why Nadler opposed him all those years ago. 

Unfortunately for the president, The Washington Post broke down the truth in some detail and outlined how in the 1980s Nadler was a New York State Assemblyman and then a Congressman, and he didn’t trust Trump to act in good faith with the government or the people of New York. Linda Rosenthal, a former aide to Nadler, explained the situation to The Post:

“Jerry was on him from Day One. He keenly understood that this was a man who would try to get the government to pay for all his mostly bollixed attempts at development,” said Rosenthal. “His casinos failed. He lost money on deals. He left the banks on the hook for his bad financial plans . . . He was just such a braggart and such an insincere person, but Jerry saw through that.”

Trump’s claim that Nadler wanted a railyard is actually true because he wanted the land to be used to keep middle-class workers employed and help local commuters get to and from work rather than let the land simply be exploited to line Donald Trump’s pockets. Trump, who is known for being a deeply petty and vindictive man, clearly never forgave him.

In other words, it was foolish for Trump to bring up his past with Nadler because the reality of what happened makes Trump look like an egomaniacal bully and makes the Congressman look like a champion for the average American.

Luckily for the American people, Nadler has not lost his backbone for fighting Trump’s corruption and selfishness. All those years ago he fought to protect worker’s from the real estate developer’s greed, now he’s fighting to ensure the country gets the full Mueller report. For all of our sake, let’s hope he’s successful in his mission

Natalie Dickinson

Natalie is a staff writer for the Washington Press. She graduated from Oberlin College in 2010 and has been freelance blogging and writing for progressive outlets ever since.