It’s a term often used by conservatives to deride liberal-to-moderate Republicans for being insufficiently conservative; it stands for “Republican in Name Only.”
While former President Donald Trump is no fan of Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker, a socially liberal and fiscally moderate Republican, he recently said that he doesn’t think that Baker is a RINO.
Trump told Howie Carr in a radio interview on Monday, December 6 that the term “RINO” would be too generous to describe where Baker stands.
Trump made the following statement while talking about Baker’s decision not to run for a third term next year:
Well, I wasn’t surprised cause I don’t think he could get the Republican nomination. I endorsed somebody else. I think we’re 152-2 or something like that in terms of the endorsement. It means a lot. And I met the head of the Republican Party, a really nice guy, and he was telling me about Charlie Baker, and I knew about Charlie Baker anyway — that he’s bad news and hasn’t done a good job. He’s done a very bad job on COVID. That I can tell you. He’s a very liberal guy. He’s done a very poor job on COVID and I endorsed somebody that I think is gonna be good and I think he’s gonna win the primaries very easily and, Charlie, he wasn’t even a RINO, he’s much less than a RINO. A RINO, at least, they’re in name only. This is a man who isn’t even in name only.
The “the head of the Republican Party” Trump referred to is party chairman Jim Lyons.
Trump also reiterated his belief that his endorsement of former state representative Geoff Diehl (R-Whitman) for governor is the reason that Baker isn’t running again.
“Yup,” Trump told Carr. “One hundred percent of the reason. He wouldn’t’ve gotten the Republican nomination. Mr. Diehl is gonna do a very good job, but Baker would not have gotten the Republican nomination, and people truly can’t stand him. They cannot stand this guy.”
Unlike Baker, Diehl supported the former president in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. Baker, a Trump critic, has said he did not vote for a major party candidate at the top of the ticket in the 2016 or 2020 presidential elections.
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