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Donald Trump Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 05, 2016 95 Comments
Did you hear the latest? Yesterday in Trumpernoia: Fox News is out to get Donald Trump, after giving him so much airtime people previously had accused Fox News of being in the tank for Trump. Now, the fix it in for Marco Rubio. It's an Open Borders billionaire conspiracy. Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes' strings are being pulled by a Saudi Prince who was photographed with Megyn Kelly. The daughter of Fox News Executive VIP Bill Sammon works for Rubio. But it goes even deeper, really deep. Someone who used to work for Dana Perino now is Rubio's press secretary. It's just rumor for now, but Jasper may be in on the conspiracy, but he's not talking. And don't trust the vote count, it's being done by a Rubio donor. Today in Trumpernoia: Frank Luntz did consulting for Marco Rubio almost a decade ago to help shape Rubio's political image. But Luntz doesn't disclose that decade-old consulting when he talks about Rubio, so all the Luntz panels on Fox News are biased against Trump and favoring Rubio. The spark for this bias claim was this Luntz focus group after the last GOP debate, and Rubio's recent rise in the polls:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 03, 2016 56 Comments
Jimmy Carter has joined with much of the Republican establishment in expressing preference for Donald Trump over Ted Cruz because Trump will make deals. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports:
Turning to the “almost completely unpredictable” race for the Republican nomination, Carter said he had a “feeling” that Trump’s chances ultimately would “fade away. “When people actually get ready to put on a ballot, ‘This is the person I want to lead me for the next four or eight years, I think they’ll have a little different opinion,’” Carter said. Still, better him than Ted Cruz. If he had to choose between Cruz and Trump for the Republican nomination, Carter chuckled, “I think I would choose Trump, which may surprise some of you.”

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on February 03, 2016 171 Comments
Watching the votes trickle in from Iowa's Caucus Monday night, I suggested a second-place finish for Trump would be an unenjoyable experience for us all:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on February 02, 2016 13 Comments
He's appeared at campaign events with Sen. Rubio in South Carolina, but today Sen. Tim Scott made his endorsement official. Rumors of the endorsement began last night amid the Iowa excitement. This morning, Sen. Rubio's presidential campaign released the following video:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 01, 2016 63 Comments
Logically, Donald Trump should be the worst candidate against the Hillary machine. He has a colorful history that would be an oppo-researcher's dream.  Like taking candy from a baby. And his negatives are in the stratosphere. Gallup just released a survey showing that Trump's negatives not only are high, they are of a historic nature:
At this point (two-week average through Jan. 27), 33% of Americans view Trump favorably and 60% unfavorably. It's that 60% unfavorable figure that I can focus on here. Hillary Clinton currently has a 52% unfavorable rating among all Americans, while Jeb Bush is at 45%, Chris Christie 38%, Ted Cruz 37%, Marco Rubio 33%, Bernie Sanders 31% and Ben Carson 30%. Trump's 60% is clearly well above all of these. Putting his favorable and unfavorable ratings together yields a net favorable of -27 for Trump, far above the -10 for Clinton and for Bush, the next lowest among the major candidates.... Looking across all of these candidates' unfavorable ratings outside of election years yields this conclusion: Only one of them, George W. Bush, ever had an unfavorable rating of 60% or higher. For Bush, his unpopularity crested in his final lame-duck year in office, with an unfavorable rating that hit 66% in April 2008.
In the RCP average Trump trails Hillary by 2.7% in a head-to-head match up, while Rubio is up 2.5% and Cruz is up 1.3%. Yet, it seems that notwithstanding the Dem spin that they fear Rubio the most, the Clinton War Room is preparing for Trump, and is confounded. Politico reports, How Clinton is plotting to go after Trump:

Posted by New Neo on January 31, 2016 216 Comments
As a large-scale real estate developer, Trump has sometimes sued in his efforts to use government to condemn houses belonging to people of modest means whose homes---which Trump considers insufficiently attractive---have stood near his big developments and have chosen to exercise their liberty by refusing to sell to him. That's one of the reasons Trump agrees 100% with the SCOTUS decision in Kelo (decided in 2005): he sees it making it easier for him to use government to compel the sale of a person's house even against that person's will. It's Trump's prerogative to approve of Kelo, and it's certainly understandable that someone in his line of work might have that point of view. He has every right to build his projects, and to try to buy the land of those with adjacent property.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on January 31, 2016 21 Comments
Many conservatives opine that what we need after Obama's disastrous presidency is the same cure we had after Jimmy Carter's disastrous presidency: a Ronald Reagan. This desire isn't lost on the Republican candidates for president.  Many are comparing themselves to President Reagan in the hopes of stoking, even fulfilling, that hope.  One such comparison to President Reagan was recently made by Donald Trump who compared his very recent Democrat background to that of President Reagan. The Hill reported at the time:
In response to questions about the business mogul’s previous status as a card-carrying Democrat, Trump said that he was in good company. “If you look at Ronald Reagan, and he was a Democrat, he was actually, Don, he was a Democrat with a very liberal, or at least a pretty liberal bent, and he became a Republican with a somewhat conservative — I wouldn’t say very, but he was a conservative Republican,” Trump said.
Watch:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 27, 2016 112 Comments
Enough has been written about how Donald Trump is breaking or rewriting or ignoring all the rules. Or operating in 3 dimensions while everyone else is operating in 2 dimensions. I see something in Trump, though, that is very familiar to me. It's the concept of creating chaos in your opponent's house as a revolutionary tactic.  Or to put it another way, being a disrupter. The now deceased Abbie Hoffman and Trump seemingly have little in common. While Hoffman rejected capitalism Trump embraces it. Yet they both employed the same tactic. Hoffman tried to create chaos in the economic system, but never really succeeded. Trump has succeeded in creating utter chaos in everyone else's house (Republican Party, Fox News, other candidates, basically anyone who crosses his path).   That's only half the equation, though. It's not just enough to create chaos in others. The second part is to create community within your own house. Hoffman never was good at that; in business Trump has been good at building his own house. I first wrote about this just after Obama took office, using a passage from Hoffman's book, Steal This Book. (Text here) Here's my post, from February 9, 2009, “Steal This Country”:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 26, 2016 166 Comments
The dispute between Donald Trump and Fox News has escalated rapidly today. It went from Trump was thinking about refusing to appear, to Trump likely not appearing, to the campaign saying Trump "definitely" would not appear. Megyn Kelly, the focus of Trump's ire, just announced on her show that Trump is out based on conversations Carl Cameron had with the Trump campaign. The Trump campaign apparently has released a statement to that effect. Trump Statement Fox News Debate (added) Fox News issued the following statement:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 26, 2016 58 Comments
UPDATE - Everything changed in the three hours since this post. Trump campaign says he’s out of Fox News Debate (Reader Poll) Fox News just announced its stage line up for the debate Thursday night. Donald Trump is center stage. Fox News Debate 1-28-2016 Line Up Donald Trump is upset that Megyn Kelly is one of the moderators of Thursday's Fox News debate. Trump has been complaining for days, demanding she be removed. Fox News just said No. Now Trump is upping the ante, posting this Instagram video complaining of Kelly's bias:

Posted by New Neo on January 25, 2016 211 Comments
By now, word has gotten around that Donald Trump has said quite a few things---either in the past or quite recently---indicating support for many liberal positions and politicians. As a result, the arguments have gone back and forth between his supporters and his opponents as to what Trump's actual belief system might be, and what he might be willing and/or able to do if he were to hold the most powerful office in the land. But however one wishes to label him on the political spectrum, it is instructive to watch the following video. It features a sampling of clips of Trump making some of these controversial statements. As you might imagine, the video was compiled by a new super PAC founded by Katie Packer, described here as "a veteran Republican strategist." Please watch the montage and see what you think:

Posted by Mike LaChance on January 24, 2016 108 Comments
The next Republican debate is coming up this Thursday and will be hosted by FOX News. Based on their back and forth the last time FOX News hosted, Donald Trump asked the network to take Megyn Kelly off the moderator desk. Unfortunately for Trump, the network is doing no such thing. USA Today reports:
Fox to Trump: Megyn Kelly will be a debate moderator Fox News has a message for Donald Trump: Megyn Kelly will be a moderator for next week's Republican debate, despite the businessman's call for her removal.

Posted by New Neo on January 23, 2016 39 Comments
A recent Politico article talks about how Trump might defeat Clinton. The article's lede focuses on potential support among black voters:
If Donald Trump becomes the next president of the United States, there will be plenty of surprises along the way. One of the biggest will be the help he gets from black voters. According to Republican pollsters and Trump’s allies, the GOP poll-leader — who has been dogged by accusations of racism, most recently for tweeting out a chart that exaggerated the share of murders committed by blacks — is poised to out-perform with this demographic group in a general-election matchup with Hillary Clinton.
However, although it quotes pollsters, the article doesn't link to any actual polls that show Trump's support from black voters. Nor do those pollsters mention any poll numbers that would support the contention that black voters support Trump.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on January 22, 2016 164 Comments
Speaking to a crowd in Las Vegas Thursday night, Donald Trump said he'd be part of the establishment if elected; a bit odd considering he's spent the majority of his campaign portraying himself as the ultimate political outsider. But standard rules don't apply this election cycle. Apparently. The abbreviated version of Trump's remarks:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 22, 2016 122 Comments
National Review has a special issue Against Donald Trump, with columns by 22 people, most of whom are familiar conservative writers and media personalities. I skimmed a few of the columns and they make the case persuasively that Trump is not a conservative. You know the arguments already. He's for activist big government, a populist with no conservative ideological compass, and is not what he purports to be even on his core issue of immigration (where he may be to the left of Marco Rubio in reality). National Review Conservatives Against Trump Cover

Posted by Jonathan Levin on January 22, 2016 50 Comments
The Republican emeritus leadership seems to be breaking for Donald Trump over Ted Cruz as the lesser of two evils.  They reason that Trump is less extreme, less likely to cause collateral damage to Republicans in Congressional and state races, and more electable. They're also probably wrong, at least about the electability question.  Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com writes:
It’s hard to say exactly how well (or poorly) Trump might fare as the Republican nominee. Partisanship is strong enough in the U.S. that even some of his most ardent detractors in the GOP would come around to support him were he the Republican candidate. Trump has some cunning political instincts, and might not hesitate to shift back to the center if he won the GOP nomination. A recession or a terror attack later this year could work in his favor. But Trump would start at a disadvantage: Most Americans just really don’t like the guy.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 21, 2016 72 Comments
Anyone who a year ago picked Donald Trump and Ted Cruz to be the two leading Republican candidates heading into the Iowa Caucuses either (i) is a liar, or (ii) should invest heavily in the lottery because they are beyond lucky. Certainly, the powers that be in the Republican Party were not expecting it. Here's what a Fox News poll looked like in January 2015: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/interactive/2015/01/29/fox-news-poll-voters-believe-romney-clinton-remain-top-picks-for-2016-believe/ The pollster didn't even bother to ask about Trump. And Cruz was in low single digits. Now Trump is on top in the national polls and Cruz is in second place. In Iowa, three polls released today show Cruz leading, a dead heat, and Trump leading.
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