Some leftist at the Daily Beast is busy trying to "expose" President Trump as a hypocrite.

He's failing miserably.

Get a load:

As he campaigns for re-election, Donald Trump and his team have made trashing the "socialists or communists" in the 2020 Democratic presidential field a cornerstone of their messaging. In private, however, the president often strikes a different, more nuanced tone — one driven by a concern that socialism (at least as defined by the Democrats) may actually sell politically.

Is this guy living in a tree?

Assuming that his Trump story is true, Trump would have been stating the ugly truth about socialism — that it's always been premised on a devilish lie.

Its record since its inception in early 20th-century Russia is one of outrageous deception, starting with its mendacious promises to voters that they're going to get free stuff.  "Bread, Peace, Land" as 1917's Bolsheviks sloganed their vile socialist revolution.  After a few years of them in power, the producers fled, the money ran out, and the famine began.  That was the first big one, in 1921.  After the Bolsheviks saw how useful that was, they started initiating famines by design.  Ukraine had a big one by 1932.  Mao in China had monster famines, too, multiple ones.  So did every socialist regime promising free stuff on the face of the planet.  Just look at Venezuela in 1998 with election of Hugo Chávez promising free stuff to many cheers — and starving Venezuelans fleeing in their millions now for their lives.

This is entirely opaque to the Daily Beast, which seems to think condemning socialism is antithetical to warning in private about its false promises. 

I wouldn't be surprised if that warning, by the way, wasn't private.  Socialism is indeed hard to beat because of its false promises, but that doesn't mean it hasn't been a disaster.  Trump understands both of these facts and is getting word out there, something no other pol has been quite so willing to do quite so effectively.

What it means is Trump is on his toes.  He knows the games socialists play.  He knows that their promises sound pretty — and the inevitable result of them is a disaster.  For anyone trying to sell that kind of garbage — or call Trump a hypocrite for knowing the difference — the only real news to them is that Trump has their number.