Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has struggled on many fronts, but there’s one question the Republican and his team have barely tried to answer: why are so many top officials on the former president’s team l did they publicly condemn? Why should Americans support a candidate who can’t even win the support of those Trump handpicked to work alongside him?

The Republican candidate, true to form, relied heavily on schoolyard taunts and tiresome name-calling. Targeting his former White House chief of staff, Trump in recent days condemned retired four-star Gen. John Kelly as a “total job,” A “crazy“, and a “insensitive loser.”

That was predictable, of course, but it doesn’t answer underlying questions about the scope and scale of the condemnation the Republican nominee received from those who worked closely with him.

It turns out that Trump’s current running mate apparently has some thoughts on the matter. Politico reported:

To his credit, Tapper invested quite a bit of time on this point, and the Ohio Republican presented several possible ideas — all of them incredibly unconvincing.

“Why doesn’t John Kelly support Donald Trump? It’s a matter of policy,” the senator said. “It’s not about personality.”

In the end, we already know that was the opposite of the truth. In fact, Kelly, in her interview last week with the New York Times, explicitly says he often agrees with his former boss on political issues. The retired general nevertheless condemned Trump’s fascism and his positive comments about Adolf Hitler.

So Vance tried another topic of discussion. “Do you know of any reason why Kamala Harris doesn’t have as many people criticizing her? (It’s) because she doesn’t fire people who fail,” the Ohioan said, adding, “Donald Trump fires them. And I would much prefer a president who fires people who make mistakes.”

This is also false. Many of those who have condemned Trump or refused to support his candidacy – former Vice President Mike Pence, retired General Mark Milley, former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, and others. — were not fired. The idea that they are “unhappy» Former employees, attacking the boss who showed them the door, would be more convincing if it had really happened. But that’s not the case.

But this line of inquiry led to a particularly memorable exchange.