Trump, in a Sunday-morning appearance on “Fox and Friends,” took a different tack. “I hope [Gowdy] does a better job than he did, frankly, at the Benghazi hearings, because they were a total disaster,” Trump said, referring to the October 22 hearing in which Gowdy, chairman of the Select Committee on Benghazi, called Hillary Clinton to testify. After the marathon hearing, some observers on both sides of the political aisle concluded that Republicans had failed to lay a glove on Clinton.

“[Gowdy] did not win with those hearings,” Trump said. “It was not good for Republicans and for the country. I hope he does a lot better for Marco than he did with the Benghazi hearings.”

Polls have consistently shown that Trump does well with Republicans who are more moderate than the most conservative in the party. Given his campaign so far, it should be no surprise that he would attack Republican favorite Gowdy — and no surprise that he would base the attack on accusations about competence, rather than ideology.