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Donald Trump Tag

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on November 28, 2015 24 Comments
Between reports that representatives from major networks (CNN, FOX, NBC, ABC, and CBS) gathered together to discuss how to take down Trump and John Kasich's bizarre ad, Trump seems to have more people poised to work against him than with him. The Hill reports that the GOP is in a "panic" over Trump and are finally taking his campaign seriously enough to call him "the clear front-runner" and to wonder how to derail it. So far, GOP strategists and pundits on both sides have been predicting that Trump's success will be short-lived, that it's just like the last presidential election in which each candidate had his or her 15 minutes of fame . . . only to crash, burn, and drop out in a matter of weeks. That, however, is not the case with Trump thus far; the Hill continues:
“The media has twisted and turned through a number of different positions where they tried to explain that it was just a fad — the summer of Trump,” said Craig Robinson, a former political director of the Republican Party of Iowa. “Well, it’s lasted all fall. There is a realization that you are not going to wake up tomorrow and he’s going to vanish.”

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 25, 2015 34 Comments
There's a big spat over Donald Trump's comments that he remembers seeing video of Muslims in Jersey City or other towns near NYC cheering the attack on the World Trade Center. The argument is over whether it happened, whether there is video and so on. Trump is sticking to his memory, and the media is swarming to prove him wrong. CNN in particular is going all out on the effort. There's no purity of purpose there. What's most interesting to me is that there is an emerging consensus among those who are hammering Trump on this that Trump is not "lying," but likely is thinking of celebrations elsewhere. Since the aspersions that Trump is a "racist" or "Islamophobic" are predicated on a bad intent, whether he is lying as opposed to honestly mistaken seems relevant. The concept of false or suggested memory is something I've often explored both in private practice and in the course I teach. There just are some people who absolutely believe and will swear on a stack of Bibles to something that objectively did not happen -- and they always seem to be on the other side of the case from me! They are not liars, but they are wrong. Proving it is the challenge. Robert Mackey of The New York Times argues that Trump probably is confusing videos of Palestinians cheering with some memory of it taking place in northern New Jersey, The Video of Celebrations That Was Broadcast on 9/11:

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 22, 2015 45 Comments
This development is cause for concern for many on the right. If Donald Trump runs as an independent, he'll obviously take more votes away from the Republican candidate than the Democrat. The Wall Street Journal reports:
Donald Trump: Open to Independent Bid if GOP Doesn’t Treat Him ‘Fairly’ Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump said Sunday he is open to running for president as an independent if he concludes Republicans are not treating him “fairly.” He made his comments on ABC’s “This Week” when asked about a Wall Street Journal story first published online Friday that reported an effort by Republican establishment figures to unite to knock Mr. Trump out of the race. The group plans a “guerrilla campaign” backed by secret donors to “defeat and destroy” the celebrity businessman’s candidacy, the Journal reported.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on November 22, 2015 6 Comments
In light of the terror attack in Paris and (presumably) Obama's weak performance against ISIS and bizarrely petulant performance in Turkey, terrorism now rivals the economy as the single most important issue to American voters. ABCNews reports:
Terrorism suddenly rivals the economy as the single most important issue to Americans in the 2016 presidential election -- and a year out, a new ABC News/Washington Post poll finds more people paying close attention to the contest than at this point in any race back to 1988. After years of dominating the political landscape, the economy now has company. Given the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris, 28 percent of Americans now call terrorism the top issue in their choice for president, compared with 33 percent who cite the economy. Nothing else comes close. Attention, moreover, is focused as never before. Three-quarters of Americans say they are closely following the 2016 race, including three in 10 who are following it very closely. That’s the highest level of attention at this point in a presidential race in polls back nearly 30 years.
According to this report:  "Partisan divisions are 33-23-36 percent, Democrats-Republicans-independents."

Posted by Amy Miller on November 17, 2015 72 Comments
Way back in September, when we were still young and naive in our belief that conservatives would overcome the odds and rally around The One sooner rather than later, I attended an anti-Iran nuclear deal rally on Capitol Hill. The event was headlined by Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, and featured the kind of anti-establishment, anti-Obama, anti-ridiculously stupid foreign policy speeches that have bolstered the more non-traditional candidates on the current Republican slate. Walking around, I was amazed at how many people displayed swag from multiple campaigns---weren't we in the middle of a hotly-contested nomination cycle? Still, rally attendees seemed less worried about who was taking a stand than they were about the possibility that nobody would take a stand at all. Trump and Cruz worked well together in this regard; they connected with the crowd and produced a cohesive message that resonated both on the Hill, and outside Washington. Looks like the honeymoon is over, though. It was nice while it lasted, but let's face it---we all saw this one coming.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on November 15, 2015 18 Comments
As the Republican presidential primary heats up, illegal immigration is again taking center stage.  While this is nothing new (as we know President Reagan attempted to address it in the '80s, John McCain made it a priority in '08, and on), the discussion has taken an interesting turn this election cycle. At issue, of course, are Obama's executive amnesty, the recent influx of illegal immigrants (including huge numbers of children), the vast number of illegals currently living and working in the U.S., border security (such as it is), and a host of related issues including the burden of illegal immigration on tax payers in terms of jobs, health care, schooling, police and judicial involvement, and various entitlement costs. Marco Rubio's involvement with the Gang of Eight, particularly his decision to work closely with Chuck Schumer, has not gone unnoticed by either the conservative base nor by the other presidential hopefuls.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 13, 2015 73 Comments
The Donald posted a new ad to his Instagram account Friday morning and like everything else Trump, it's pretty, shall we say "bold"? Posted with the caption, "Happy Friday the 13th," and set to what sounds like a rip-off of the theme music from the popular slasher series, Halloween, Trump's ad wonders whether fellow Republican presidential candidate, Ben Carson, is a violent criminal or pathological liar.

Happy Friday the 13th

A video posted by Donald J. Trump (@realdonaldtrump) on

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 08, 2015 17 Comments
I watched Saturday Night Live last night for the first time in years and so did a lot of other people. Entertainment Weekly reports that it was a ratings bonanza:
Donald Trump gives SNL its biggest ratings in years Trump is still bringing the bump. With Donald Trump hosting, Saturday Night Live jumped to its biggest overnight rating since 2012. According to NBC, SNL had a whopping 6.6 household rating on Saturday night, easily beating the season’s previous high: the 41st season premiere last month, hosted by Miley Cyrus and with a guest appearance by none other than … Hillary Clinton. In fact, Trump’s overnight rating was 47 percent higher than the Miley/Hillary episode.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 04, 2015 35 Comments
"For the children" unless using children as profane props helps your cause, in which case, eff it. Or at least that seems to be the case with a presumably anti-Trump PAC, Deport Racism. Promoting their contest which offers a cash prize to any audience member who successfully disrupts Trump's upcoming Saturday Night Live appearance by shouting "deport racism" or calling Trump a racist, Deport Racism used children to share, a "few words of their own" with The Donald. Mainly, "f*ck you, racist F*ck!" WARNING: Language, obvs.

Posted by Amy Miller on November 02, 2015 24 Comments
October's CNBC-hosted Republican debate threw into full relief the bias inherent in the mainstream media's handling of electoral politics. In the wake of the broadcast, both the MSM and RNC leadership fielded comments and accusations from candidates (and conservative bloggers...) rendered beyond frustrated at the CNBC moderators' questions, tone, and approach to a slate of candidates they treated like a lineup of hostile witnesses. Donald Trump has spent a great deal of time since that debate lashing out at the media over its treatment of conservatives, and his latest move is one that his supporters hope will set him further apart from the pack. Republican campaign reps gathered together this weekend in a meeting organized by GOP attorney Ben Ginsberg to craft a list of demands the entire slate of GOP candidates could present to network executives before the next debate. Representatives from Trump's campaign attended this meeting---then promptly announced their intention to independently negotiate with the networks apart from Ginsberg's efforts.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on October 31, 2015 10 Comments
While it seems clear that the loser of this week's CNBC debate debacle was CNBC (and in many ways, the mainstream media as a whole), I was and am really curious to see post-debate polling.  Watching the debate, I couldn't help but think that those ill-prepared, condescending, and generally unpleasant moderators were doing the GOP—and conservatives more generally—a gigantic favor.  We've long said that the media is biased against, unfair toward, and disingenuous about Republicans, and we couldn't have written a script ourselves to better prove our point. The first post-debate poll released, an online NBC poll, shows Trump and Carson leading the race with 26% each and Ted Cruz in third with 10%.  Mike Flynn reports:
No other candidates earn double-digit support in the poll, from NBC News/Survey Monkey. Among those Republicans who watched the debate, Trump edges Carson, 25-24, while Cruz’s support jumps to 17 percent. Nearly a quarter of Republicans said Cruz did the best in the debate. He was followed closely by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), with one-in-five Republicans saying he did best. Trump and then Carson round out the top 4 performances in the debate, according to Republican voters.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on October 29, 2015 10 Comments
I think it's safe to say we've reached peak primary with this one. Tuesday, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump accused fellow candidate Ben Carson of changing his position on abortion.

Posted by New Neo on October 23, 2015 71 Comments
It's fairly clear that there's no love lost between Donald Trump and Jeb Bush. Trump's recent criticism of George W. Bush in relation to 9/11 has been largely seen as a way to needle Jeb and keep the friction going between them. And it's certainly accomplished just that. Although that's undoubtedly part of Trump's motivation for his recent remarks, it doesn't even begin to explain Trump's long history of extremely critical and incendiary comments about GWB, which date back to many years before Trump or Jeb ever ran for president and most definitely were not sparked by their rivalry for the presidency in 2016. On Wednesday I wrote about the subject in this article for the Weekly Standard. Here's an excerpt:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on October 22, 2015 62 Comments
The latest from Quinnipiac has Ben Carson leading Donald Trump in Iowa by eight points. Trump's average Iowa lead has shrunk to a meager .7. Rubio and Cruz are the only other candidates in the double digits. According to the release:
This compares to the results of a September 11 survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University showing Trump at 27 percent with Carson at 21 percent. Today, Sen. Rand Paul is at 6 percent, with Carly Fiorina and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush at 5 percent each. No other candidate tops 3 percent, with 3 percent undecided.
Even more interesting how poorly Trump polls among women and that he's earned 30% of the "no way" vote.

Posted by Mike LaChance on October 21, 2015 207 Comments
Through the spring and summer, many pundits and politicians dismissed Donald Trump's campaign for president as a flash in the pan. Large crowds at his events were explained away by dissatisfaction with the establishment. Now that his lead in the polls has held for so long, people are singing a different tune. Howard Kurtz of FOX News:
The media establishment finally admits Trump could win this thing I remember shaking my head, on the day that Donald Trump announced, when NPR’s Mara Liasson declared that this would be the best day of his campaign and it was downhill from there. Liasson cheerfully admitted she was wrong on my show, but she had plenty of company. Most of the media establishment seemed to fall into two camps: those who were skeptical that Trump was anything more than a sideshow, and those who attacked him as a clown and a charlatan. Fast-forward to this past weekend when Chris Wallace, having just interviewed Trump for “Fox News Sunday,” said: “I know all of us dismissed Trump, early on, all of the so-called experts.” But after their sitdown, Wallace said, “I am beginning to believe he could be elected president of the United States.”

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 18, 2015 202 Comments
This election season has had so many surprises, I'm staying away from making predictions. But one thing is clear -- Donald Trump has done Republicans a favor by exposing weaknesses in other candidates, in many cases such fatal flaws that they could never survive a Clinton-Media onslaught. That weeding out process is not over, but already it has dispatched Rick Perry and Scott Walker. I wasn't surprised with Perry, but the Trump phenomenon exposed weaknesses in Walker as a national candidate. While it ain't over until it is over, Jeb Bush has been damaged more than anyone by Trump. From day one, Trump has been humiliating and emasculating Jeb with taunts. That would not have had much effect unless those taunts exposed Jeb's inherent weaknesses as a candidate. When Trump taunted Jeb as being low energy, it rang true and Jeb didn't know how to react. When Trump raised the issue of Jeb being soft on immigration because his wife is an immigrant, Jeb on stage at a debate demanded an apology to Jeb's wife, who was in the audience. Trump refused, and Jeb had nowhere to go with it -- Jeb looked weak. Now Trump is zeroing in on Jeb's biggest problem -- George W. Bush.

Posted by Mike LaChance on October 18, 2015 48 Comments
Threats to Republican front runners Dr. Ben Carson and Donald Trump have been so significant that the two candidates will now get protection from the Secret Service. Todd Beamon of Newsmax reports, hat tip to The Gateway Pundit:
Secret Service to Protect Trump, Carson as Threats Grow The Secret Service will give agent protection to Ben Carson and Donald Trump while heavily upgrading Hillary Clinton's existing detail, a Washington source close to the agency’s plans confirmed to Newsmax. The deployment of agents around Republican candidates Trump and Carson is set to begin as early as next week. Approximately two dozen agents will be assigned to each candidate. Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, has had Secret Service protection since leaving the White House as first lady in 2001, but her detail will be heavily upgraded by the agency’s move.

Posted by Amy Miller on October 15, 2015 22 Comments
When Donald Trump first launched his presidential campaign, he looked like a man who was on a mission to become King of the Media Circus. He was boisterous, bold, and didn't hesitate to take his opponents and detractors to the cleaners on a daily basis. Surely, this was some sort of stunt or vanity campaign, right? Then, of course, the poll numbers started hitting the airwaves, proving that what he was saying and doing was resonating with voters and the American people at large. Now, a new report from NBC News shows that the Trump campaign has decided to put its money where its candidate's mouth is, and launch a "formidable" ground game in the cycle's most crucial primary state. Other candidates shied away from Iowa, not wanting to peak too early; Trump, on the other hand, made multiple, high-profile and highly-attended appearances in the state, and has now embedded 12 paid staffers---more than any other candidate currently campaigning in Iowa---to put boots on the ground and start doing the grunt work that actually wins elections.
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