Donald Trump's attacks on New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, a Republican widely spoken about as a potential running mate for his campaign, show that he's not acting "like somebody who deeply wants to win the presidency," Washington Post associate editor and columnist David Ignatius said Wednesday.
"He loves being in front of the TV screen every night," Ignatius commented on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program. "He's not acting like somebody who deeply wants to win the presidency. There's still a 'Mad Max' quality to the way he operates himself...if you wanted to win it, you wouldn't have done what he just did.
During a Tuesday rally in Trump's first stop in
New Mexico, where violent crowds outside protested his appearance, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee mocked Martinez with a series of negative statistics about the nation's most Hispanic State.
"We have to get your governor to get going. She's got to do a better job, OK?" he said, adding: "Hey, maybe I'll run for governor of New Mexico. I'll get this place going."
Martinez did not attend the rally, and has not yet endorsed Trump as the nominee. After the rally, her office fired back, saying she has fought for welfare reform.
"The potshots weren't about policy, they were about politics," said spokesman Michael Lonergan. "And the governor will not be bullied into supporting a candidate until she is convinced that candidate will fight for New Mexicans, and she did not hear that today."
Martinez, who heads the Republican Governors Association and is the nation's only Latina governor, has criticized Trump's remarks on immigrants and his call for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough questioned Trump's tactics for his attack on the powerful governor.
"Attacking a Hispanic woman who is a governor in a swing state that Republicans haven't won in a while that they need to win?" he said. "She's also the head of the Republican Governors' Association. Again, these may be things you do in intramural batteries in Republican primaries. As we have said for the past month or so, he's got to make the turn.
"He's got to start acting like a general election candidate. He's just not doing anything."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.