President Trump called Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) a “nasty guy” during a meeting with Congressional Republicans, a source in the meeting told The Hill.
According to Politico’s Jake Sherman, Trump also said “Is Mark Sanford here? I just want to congratulate him on running a great race,” during the meeting with congressional Republicans, which was ostensibly focused on immigration.
Trump’s comments come just one week after Sanford lost his primary bid to state Rep. Katie Arrington (R).
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Sanford, who has been critical of Trump in the past, said he lost because he wasn’t “Trump enough”
“People are running for cover because they don’t want to be on the losing side of a presidential tweet,” the South Carolina Republican told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “The idea that you can’t speak out and say, ‘I disagree with you here, but I agree with you on 90 percent of the stuff’ … is, again, a twilight world that I’ve never seen.”
Trump went after Sanford and endorsed his opponent just hours before the polls closed in the congressman’s district last Tuesday. In his tweet, the president alluded to Sanford’s 2009 affair with an Argentine woman.
“Mark Sanford has been very unhelpful to me in my campaign to MAGA. He is MIA and nothing but trouble. He is better off in Argentina,” Trump tweeted. “I fully endorse Katie Arrington for Congress in SC, a state I love. She is tough on crime and will continue our fight to lower taxes. VOTE Katie!”
Trump reportedly opened up the meeting on Tuesday by touting the success of the Republican tax law and his recently imposed tariffs.