Trump threatened to leave GOP: Is that really shocking?

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It’s an eye-popping bit of news: Donald Trump, on his last day as president, saying he’s leaving the Republican Party.

But after reflecting on this for two or three seconds, it’s clear that Trump’s comments were not very surprising at all.

A former Democrat, Trump was never a conventional Republican. He was never a classic small-government conservative. He executed a hostile takeover of the GOP by beating its standard-bearers, from Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio to Ted Cruz and Chris Christie. He always had an uneasy relationship with the party’s congressional leaders, including Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell.

The news comes from ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl in his forthcoming book "Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show." Maybe Trump was just venting, or angry about leaving office; he obviously didn’t carry out his threat.

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But the reported conversation with Ronna McDaniel, the RNC chairwoman, based on two sources with "direct knowledge," is revealing:

"I'm done," Trump said. "I'm starting my own party."

FILE - In this  Tuesday, May 1, 2018 file photo, President Donald Trump speaks during a ceremony to present the Commander in Chief trophy to the U.S. Military Academy football team in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington. Democrat Terry McAuliffe has brought in the biggest names in Democratic politics to come to his aid in Virginia's hotly contested gubernatorial race: Obama, Harris, Abrams, Biden (both Joe and Jill). Republican Glenn Youngkin, meanwhile, is campaigning with ... Glenn Youngkin. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

"You cannot do that," McDaniel told him. "If you do, we will lose forever."

"Exactly. You lose forever without me. I don't care."

Trump has now dismissed Karl as a "third-rate reporter"--one of his favorite insults--but last year he praised the book as "very good" and "better about me than I thought it would be," based on an earlier excerpt.

Karl is a seasoned journalist, and if the anecdote wasn’t true, I’m sure we would have seen McDaniel’s denial by now.

My surmise is it didn’t take Trump long to realize that even someone with as loyal a following as he commanded was not going to win back the White House as an independent. The Republican nomination in 2024 is basically his for the asking. So he decided instead to try to remake the party, by trying to purge what he views as the RINOs--meaning those who don’t completely and fully support him and his election fraud claims.

The former president has been slamming McConnell ever since the Senate’s Republican leader recognized Joe Biden’s victory, calling him a "stupid person." And in an interview with the Washington Post, Trump said McConnell isn’t a "real leader" because "he didn’t fight for the presidency"--meaning try to block Biden’s election. Trump is openly calling for Republicans to oust McConnell if they win back the Senate next year. Still, McConnell says he’ll back Trump if he wins the GOP nomination--anything else would mean civil war.

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This is more than ancient history because Trump is constantly in the news. When the House Jan. 6 committee issued new subpoenas to Mike Flynn, Bernie Kerik, Bill Stepien, Jason Miller and others, it was the top story hour after hour on MSNBC. (You might note that the House held Steve Bannon in contempt and nothing’s happened so far.)

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., speaks to reporters after a Republican strategy meeting at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 19, 2021. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

The daily churn of Trump news is driven in part by his successor’s much lower profile, and in part because some news outlets are trying to reverse a steep ratings slide by returning to Trump-bashing.

In an Atlantic excerpt of his book, Karl focuses on the little-known head of Trump’s personnel operation:

"The office was run by Johnny McEntee. Just 29 when he got the job, he’d come up as Trump’s body guy—the kid who carried the candidate’s bags. One of Trump’s most high-profile Cabinet secretaries described him to me as ‘a f--- idiot.’ But in 2020, his power was undeniable. Trump knew he was the one person willing to do anything Trump wanted. As another senior official told me, ‘He became the deputy president.’"

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This is relevant today because in the runup to the Jan. 6 riot, who didn’t exactly have a background as a constitutional scholar, sent Mike Pence’s office "an absurd memo making the case that Pence would be following Thomas Jefferson’s example if he used his power to declare Trump the winner of the 2020 election." The memo was wrong about Jefferson’s role but wielded enormous influence.

Joe Biden and Mike Pence (AP/Getty Images)

History would be different if Trump had done what he told Ronna McDaniel he would do. Now Republican politicians still have to figure out how to co-exist with their former leader.