The apprentices
By 
Donald Trump is one seriously weird motherfucker, but then so is Josh Mandel, so:
Starting at the very dawn of the Biden presidency, a slate of increasingly MAGA-fied Republican candidates have each competed for Donald Trump’s coveted endorsement in the critical, Hunger Games-esque U.S. Senate primary in Ohio. But for the past year, the ex-president has steadfastly refused to pick a favorite and intervene in the intra-party battle, even though the candidates—including the once-clear frontrunner Josh Mandel—have campaigned as if they were overtly simpering parodies of Trumpism.
There are a few key reasons why the twice-impeached former president hasn’t yet endorsed Mandel or anybody else in that race. One reason for the hold-up is that Trump—who has long been addicted to dishing tabloid-style gossip and dirt—has for months told people close to him that he thinks Mandel is a charisma-free weirdo and dork, according to three sources who’ve spoken to Trump about Mandel and the Ohio contest since last year.
In recent months, these sources said, the onetime leader of the free world has even spent an inordinate amount of time gossiping with a large array of advisers and close associates about unconfirmed details of Mandel’s sex life. Trump has privately regurgitated, often in disgust, a wide range of unverified, often completely unvetted, and lurid rumors about the MAGA candidate.
The salacious gossip has frequently found its way to Mar-a-Lago, and wherever else Trump and his political orbit roam, because Republicans opposed to Mandel have actively pushed rumors to Trump, Ohio political circles, and reporters at major news outlets, the sources independently said.
“The [former] president has used the term ‘fucking weird’ to describe Josh Mandel more than once, when I have spoken to him about” Mandel, one of the people said. “He has talked about [Mandel] and sex in the same sentence more times than I would have liked to hear.”
Sources close to LGM say that the source of most of this gossip is a mysterious businessman who goes by the name “Peter T.”
Anyway, having to somehow curry Trump’s arbitrary favor is precisely the punishment any MAGA trying to get into Congress deserves.