Trump announces new rally for 'outstanding' GOP senator who made 'public hanging' remark

President Trump tweeted Sunday morning he will be in Mississippi Monday rallying for Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), for whom he offered effusive praise:

Hyde-Smith is in a close runoff race after she said she'd "be on the front row" if a supporter invited her to "a public hanging," a comment widely linked to Mississippi's history of lynching. Later, Hyde-Smith said making it difficult for "liberal folks" to vote sounded like a "great idea." Her campaign said it was a joke unconnected to the state's record of black voter suppression. Hyde-Smith's opponent, Democrat Mike Espy, is black.

Over the weekend, new reports indicated Hyde-Smith attended and sent her daughter to "segregation academies" formed to avoid integrating public schools, and that she promoted a measure praising a Confederate soldier for "defend[ing] his homeland."

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.