Dick Morris, Trump-Fluffer

The Newsmax pundit spent the past year fawning over Trump and trashing his Republican primary competition -- but it was rarely noted that he's a Trump adviser. (And who's that underwear-clad man?)

Oct 16, 2024

Dick Morris serves as an adviser to Donald Trump — but that tends not to get mentioned during his Newsmax appearances. For the past year, Morris has been engaging in his usual Donald Trump sycophancy, as well as bashing Trump’s Republican presidential opponents. From last fall:

Morris kept up the pro-Trump and anti-Biden talking points in his Oct. 20 column:

Global instability — two wars at once — stands in such sharp contrast to the absence of war under Trump that he has become, in effect, the peace candidate.
Meanwhile, the perception that Biden has been coddling and funding Iran is rising even as Tehran shows its new power through the Hamas attacks on Israel.
Mortgage interest rates have soared up to eight percent, triggering inflation across the board, particularly among those with adjustable rate mortgages.
Biden’s seemingly decline in his mental acuity has become a daily feature of his presidency and becomes increasingly too hard to ignore.
Trump has used the UAW strike to highlight the issue of “car choice” in opposition to electric vehicle mandates.
Trump has stayed away from the speaker fight in the U.S. House and has not suffered in the process.
Trump’s court cases daily present evidence of prosecutorial persecution that is alienating voters.

Never mind, of course, that Morris had also been touting Trump’s involvement in the speaker fight, making it clear that no new speaker would be elected without his approval.

Morris used a Nov. 28 column to exploit the Israel-Hamas war to boost Trump:

War replaced the economy as the central topic in the news (although voters still cited the economy over war as their main concern).
The country looked at the enfeebled president and saw the need for a strong coherent leader. The Trump indictments receded in our minds and the war in the Mideast crowded them out in our daily consciousness.
But, in the month after the invasion, it is becoming increasingly evident that the war has opened a deeper breech in our politics between sympathy for the Israelis and for the Palestinians.
[…]
With their increasingly vocal support for Hamas, Democrats have waffled on the issue and have lost the support of much of their Party’s base over it.
No single other issue has so demonstrated how far to the left the Democrats have drifted and they are paying the price for it in the polls.
An amorphous feeling that Trump is the more competent and alert of the candidates and a latent sympathy for his legal persecution by prosecutors and the DOJ, has hardened into solid support for him in the face of the Democratic embrace of Hamas and increasingly unreliable support for Israel.
Whether or not Israel can make the Hamas invasion and its subsequent atrocities a turning point in global opinion, it has decisively turned the American people away from the Democrats.

Meanwhile, Morris manufactured a conspiracy theory over how Biden will purportedly drop out of the presidential race in a Nov. 8 TV appearance:

Best-selling author Dick Morris, a current adviser for President Donald Trump, predicted Wednesday on Newsmax that while President Joe Biden will remain in the primary elections, a different person will end up getting the nomination at the Democratic National Convention when he drops out of the race.
According to the theory, Morris told “Wake Up America” he developed with his friend, pollster John McLaughlin, Biden would run in all the primary elections, and being largely unopposed, he’ll get the delegates for the convention.
“They will keep them until a few days before the convention and then he would announce he’s not running, release his delegates, and there would be a floor fight for the nomination,” Morris said. “But at least there wouldn’t be a long primary battle.”
The Democrats don’t want a long fight in the primary elections, he added, because they “didn’t want their candidates defending reparations for slavery, and men participating in women’s sports, all that stuff that hangs up the Democratic Party.”

Morris does know how to stay on message with his talking points.

Trashing Haley and DeSantis

Morris’ Trump adviser status also tended not to get mentioned when he appeared on Newsmax to trash Trump’s presidential competition during the primary . Morris attacked Nikki Haley in a Nov. 18 TV appearance:

While former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has surged ahead of Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis, presidential campaign adviser Dick Morris tells Newsmax that “there’s no prize for second place.”
“I think that nobody’s told Haley that there’s no prize for second place,” Morris told “Saturday Report.” “You don’t get to be vice president by finishing second. You get to be vice president by somebody picking you for VP who’s finished first.”
Note that writer Eric Mack described Morris as only a “presidential campaign adviser” but failed to specify that he was advising Trump.

Morris went on the attack over Haley’s botched answer about slavery in a Dec. 30 appearance, declaring it the end of her campaign:

GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley’s comments about the Civil War and slavery will likely be the “epitaph” for her campaign, political consultant Dick Morris told Newsmax on Saturday.
“In every cemetery where they should mark the grave of a presidential contender, there’s an epitaph about a stupid quote that they did; and this is what Nikki Haley’s epitaph will be,” Morris said on Newsmax’s “Saturday Report.”
“I think that Nikki’s comments will hurt her very badly. And, more importantly, they reflect the idea of an inexperienced candidate, of somebody who’s not used to handling this stuff,” he added. “When they’re scripted and they get a question on the script, they’re OK. But when it comes from nowhere, they don’t handle it.”
Writer Sandy Fitzgerald also noted that Morris “Morris discussed the polls that are showing former President Donald Trump as the clear front-runner in the Republican primary race and said he believes Trump will clinch the nomination in March” — but she didn’t disclose that Morris is a Trump adviser.

As Haley ended up being the lone survivor of the non-Trump candidates, Morris ranted about her staying in the race in a Feb. 18 TV hit:

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is relying on Democrat voters and anti-Trump funding to keep her GOP primary campaign afloat, but it is only a matter of time before it all sinks, according to presidential campaign adviser Dick Morris on Newsmax.
“I think the only reason she’s running is she has money,” Morris told “Saturday Report.” “She got campaign contributions from suckers who were determined to stop Donald Trump at all costs and would have given money to Mickey Mouse to do it.
“And now that Nikki Haley’s candidacy is unraveling, they’re not jumping ship. They’re still there, and their money is still in the bank account. And I think that Haley is just milking that for as long as she can, because she has the money. You have the money, you stay in.”
Regardless, Haley is throwing good money after bad despite having “zilch, zip, none, nada” hope to win next Saturday in her home state, according to Morris, the host of “Dick Morris Democracy,” which airs 3:30 p.m. ET on Newsmax.

Again, Mack described Morris as only a “presidential campaign adviser” but didn’t disclose that he was advising Trump.

Thanks for reading ConWebWatch! This post is public so feel free to share it.

Morris continued Trump-fluffing and competition-bashing throughout the primaries:

Morris also served up a decidedly inappropriate metaphor in a March 30 appearance:

Presidential campaign adviser Dick Morris listened to Good Friday sermons and lamented the marked similarities to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ to the political persecution of former president Donald Trump.
“The metaphor between what they put Jesus Christ through and what they put Donald Trump through just jumps out at you,” Morris told Newsmax’s “Saturday Report.”
“The idea of everybody in authority, everybody in a position of power, doing everything they can to torture him, scourge him, strip him of his property, debase him, degrade him, and ultimately defeat him is so clearly what the Democrats are doing to Donald Trump.
“And the metaphor to me was just very striking.”
Morris admitted to host Rita Cosby the “blasphemy” of equating anything to the crucifixion of Jesus, but noted political undertones in the persecution of the “King of the Jews” were a potential example of history repeating itself.

Yes, Morris likened Trump to Jesus. At least he admitted it was on the blasphemous side. And he wasn’t about to mention that, unlike Jesus, Trump actually committed the crimes he has been accused of.

Mysterious underwear-clad man

Mediaite served up more than we probably want to know about Dick Morris in a Jan. 16 post:

Dick Morris, author and commentator, did a live shot on Newsmax on Monday with host Rob Schmitt and talked about something, but no one knows what he said because a man in his underwear just casually strolled through his live shot and no one ever said a word about it.
As a courtesy, Mediaite watched the video a few times to make sure we all saw what we saw exactly 13 seconds in, but also to report on what Morris said while everyone was trying to digest what happened.
[…]
You know what was faster than a Mike Tyson fight? The four seconds spent onscreen by a man in his underwear while Dick Morris was talking about upcoming primary races.
You know what was longer than a Mike Tyson fight? The amount of time not spent talking about the man in his underwear who apparently had no idea Dick Morris was doing a TV hit in the room he was about to walk through.
Which begs the question: If a man walks through another man’s live shot in his underwear and no one mentions it, did it really happen?

Uh, yeah. A few days later, Mediaite discussed how the underwear guy popped up on Greg Gutfeld’s Fox News show:

His name is Doug Depierro and the next several minutes were comedy gold.
“They weren’t underwear, first of all; they were shorts,” Depierro said to peals of laughter. “I’m in Florida; you wear shorts and a tank top.”
Depierro then got down to business to tell his side of the story, and the audience could barely control themselves.
“So, I’m with Dick Morris all the time. I set up the backdrops for him. And, when I set it up, he was going to do the poll thing with Iowa. And I said, ‘Dick, you have to put the camera on an angle. Put it on an angle because I will be coming in and out of the house.’ And, of course when I walked in, I opened the door and saw he was on. I go, ‘I could shut the door and it would be like some freak dude opening the door and shutting the door.’ So, I just walked in!”
[…]
Turns out Depierro actually works for former President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago.

Of course he does. Morris is very much a Trump-fluffer, so it’s not surprising that Trump might send a little help his way.

Two months later, though, Newsmax has apparently still not talked about this — and as far as we know, Morris hasn’t either.

Dick Morris, Trump-Fluffer

The Newsmax pundit spent the past year fawning over Trump and trashing his Republican primary competition -- but it was rarely noted that he's a Trump adviser. (And who's that underwear-clad man?)

Trashing Haley and DeSantis

Mysterious underwear-clad man

Discussion about this post