WASHINGTON _ Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin Sunday defended President Trump's spree of name-calling at a campaign rally Saturday night, including the president's renewed mocking of Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., as "a very low-IQ individual."
At the raucous Pennsylvania rally for Republican House candidate Rick Saccone, Trump derided Waters for calling for his impeachment, imitating her as supposedly declaring, "'We will impeach him. We will impeach the president. But he hasn't done anything wrong. It doesn't matter, we will impeach him.'"
Mnuchin, on NBC's "Meet the Press," said Trump's verbal assaults were intended to be humorous.
"The president likes making funny names," Mnuchin told interviewer Chuck Todd, who himself was slammed by Trump in the Pennsylvania speech as a "son of a bitch."
Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., also on NBC, urged fellow Republicans not to "normalize" the president's behavior." Flake, who is not seeking re-election, said Trump's continual name-calling and continuing attacks on the news media are a threat to democratic norms.
"It's our responsibility at some point when he goes so far to stand up and say 'This is not normal,'" said Flake, who has also been subjected to repeated Trump insults.
