The hot word for today, boys and girls, is intervention.
Key Republicans close to Donald Trump’s orbit are plotting an intervention with the candidate after a disastrous 48 hours led some influential voices in the party to question whether Trump can stay at the top of the Republican ticket without catastrophic consequences for his campaign and the GOP at large.
Republican National Committee head Reince Priebus, former Republican New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich are among the Trump endorsers hoping to talk the real estate mogul into a dramatic reset of his campaign in the coming days, sources tell NBC News.
Priebus, Giuliani and Gingrich? Excuse me while I roll around on the floor and guffaw for a bit.
Stunned Republicans began seriously considering the idea of an exit ramp after an extraordinary few days during which Trump continually lashed out against a Gold Star family critical of his position on Muslim immigration, declared that he’d “always wanted” a Purple Heart but that it’s “easier” to receive one as a gift, and declined to endorse top Republican candidates including House Speaker Paul Ryan.
Sources in the candidate’s orbit tell NBC News Trump is aware of the dissatisfaction within the party. But while some labeled the state of affairs “Crazytown” and “worse than ever,” they also described a sense of powerlessness, bemoaning the fact there’s “nothing that we can do, that anybody can do right now.”
There’s absolutely no indication Trump is considering leaving the race, a move that would seem wildly out of character for a candidate who has prided himself on “winning” and grasped at any poll that shows him dominating an opponent.
However, this guy has no problem whatsoever with declaring bankruptcies, which suggests he isn’t utterly out of touch with the real world. If he continues to fall behind Clinton in the race, what will he do? Will he stay and lose or quit and whine that he was forced out because somebody was mean to him? IMO either one is possible.
If you missed all the ways Trump is having a no good, very bad week, NBC provides a list:
- In a Washington Post interview, Trump declined to endorse House Speaker Paul Ryan against his primary challenger
- He reiterated that he hasn’t endorsed Sen. John McCain and said the onetime prisoner of war “has not done a good job for the vets”
- He slapped out at Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte, saying “she has given me zero support”
- He suggested that Americans should pull their 401(k) funds out of the stock market
- He said he’s “always wanted” to receive a Purple Heart but that having one gifted to him by a supporter was “much easier”
- He said that the handling of sexual harassment has “got to be up to the individual”
- He accused Khizr Khan of being “bothered” by his plan to keep terrorists out of the country, and said that he had no regrets about his clash with the family
- He appeared to feud with a crying baby during a rally
- He reiterated that “if the election is rigged, I would not be surprised”
- The sitting president of the United States publicly called Trump “unfit to serve” and urged Republicans to withdraw their support for him.
- Trump spokesman Katrina Pierson suggested that Obama and Clinton are to blame for the death of Humayan Khan, who died in 2004, when neither were in the executive branch at the time
- An ally of Paul Manafort told our colleague John Harwood at CNBC that the campaign chairman is “mailing it in,” leaving the rest of the staff “suicidal.”
- Sitting GOP congressman Richard Hanna, HP head Meg Whitman and former Christie aide Maria Comella all said they plan to vote for Hillary Clinton
- The Washington Post released a transcript of its full interview with Trump, indicating among other things that he paused five times to watch TV coverage in the middle of the sit-down
- A GOP source told NBC’s Katy Tur that Reince Priebus is “apoplectic” over Trump’s refusal to endorse Ryan and is making calls to the campaign to express his “extreme displeasure”
Here’s one more: Yesterday Donald Trump declined to endorse Paul Ryan in his Senate primary bid next week. Today, Trump’s running mate Mike Pence said he does endorse Ryan. This comes under the heading of “stuff that’s not supposed to happen.”
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel assures its readers that Ryan will win, but in fact I can find no recent election polling in Wisconsin. I think people are just assuming that the Mighty Ryan won’t lose. They’re probably right.
If the Party self-desructs, Trump will have made America great again.
tRUMP was the Mt. Everest of hopes for the white supremacists, bigots, misogynists, homophobes, xenophobes, the stupid, the ignorant, and the religiously intolerant “Christians.”
But now, for Republicans and conservatives, he looks like he’s closer to the Marianas Trench – the deepest part of the planet, in the Pacific Ocean.
tRUMP has proven to be as low as amoeba shit in that deep, deep trench.
It couldn’t happen to a ” nicer” bunch of sociopaths and psychopaths.
Perhaps this was the plan all along, get Trump into the race, he destroys his competition, wrecks the party, Clinton gets elected, Trump writes a book and makes a movie about destroying the stupid party. Either that or he’s bug fuck crazy.
erinyes — I suspect bug fuck crazy is the most reasonable explanation.
Maybe this is just because your previous post is still fresh in my mind, but now I’m thinking that if Ryan loses the primary (big if), the GOP will unravel completely soon afterward. Establishment Republicans will realize that Trump is not merely taking potshots at them, but actually making deep wounds. They’ll reject Trump, rally behind Gary Johnson, and probably join the Libertarian Party within a year, bringing a sizable share of the Republican electorate with them. The Trump faction will absorb the Constitution Party and drift further into xenophobic, reactionary, trigger-happy lunacy, but still receive the same respect (and airtime) from the mainstream media, at least for a little while.
Tune in next week for a very special episode…
A little bit of the country bumpkin mystique worked for Dubya. But maybe there’s been a bit of a miscalculation with the Donald.
Priebus, Giuliani and Gingrich?
The three stooges? Good luck with trying to put a bridle on Trump. Psychopathy is hard wired into the DNA. Check out goatherd’s link in the previous thread. Hope might spring eternal, but not in Trump’s case.
Priebus, Giuliani and Gingrich?
The three stooges? Good luck with trying to put a bridle on Trump. Psychopathy is hard wired into the DNA. Check out goatherd’s link in the previous thread. Hope might spring eternal, but not in Trump’s case.
I wouldn’t be so sure that Paulie Ryan is firmly secure in winning his upcoming primary. A great deal of the repug support for Trump is composed of Tea party elements whose primary cause is just to shake things up in the belief that in doing so they’ll somehow find a satisfaction in governance. They’re just a hodge podge of disgruntled voters who will blindly follow Trumps lead in dismantling the GOP power structure. They want a demagogue and an authoritarian leader. If Ryan stands in opposition to Trump he could very well get swept away.
Look at Eric Cantor.. different circumstances, but the unpredictable force remains the same.
They still can’t come right out and condemn him though, can they? No guts.
I have no respect for those who put their party before their country.
There seem to be a lot of fantasies floating around about Trump being replaced as the GOP candidate. But what is the mechanism for doing so? What are the rules in each state for getting a candidate’s name on the ballot? After some date certain, different from state to state, no changes are allowed.
Personally, I can’t join the celebrating, the over-the-top display of Schadenfreude I see in comments here and elsewhere. There’s still a non-trivial possibility of a stone-cold sociopath being elected president.
I left a cheap joke out there, but no one used it, so I will:
“The Republicans are revolting!”
‘Yes, they are!!!’
“I have no respect for those who put their party before their country”. I wholeheartedly agree. However, I feel sure the Repugs would argue that the country is at risk if their platform/ideology is not adopted. Just can’t have those Democrats nominating Supreme Court judges for one thing. It’s sort of like if you don’t accept a literal interpretation of the Bible, you are going to hell and burn.
We’ll revisit my premise in several months.
Why are the republicans such sick little monkeys and why are they so disrespectful and contemptuous of lady parts.
…if he only had a heart…
…a brain…
He sure does have the noive!
“It’s sort of like if you don’t accept a literal interpretation of the Bible, you are going to hell and burn.”
Ah, but the question is: WHOSE “literal” interpretation are we gonna take as “THE” literal interpretation of record. Then there is that “Thou shalt not kill” canard (only one of thousands) that obviously does not apply to the true believers (even assuming it only means “not kill [humans],” which it definitely does not clearly state…).
Sad when outsiders understand their religion far better than the “saved.” Sadder still when they ignore all but one tiny inconsequential section of the update, and concentrate all their “belief” into cherry-picked excerpts of the superseded section (with all the sex and violence, of course).
All of this is true, but the only thing that matters is the polls. Only when the gap between Trump and HRC goes double digits will I rest. I just checked 538, and they say Trump has a 20-25 % chance of winning. That is scary!
Right now, the right wingers are counting on Julian Assange to reveal more damaging stuff about Clinton, which he assures them he has – whether that’s true or not is another matter.
You’re dealing with a public for whom this list of stuff Trump has said/done doesn’t mean for them what it means to you and I.
I’ve read that the Republican party is CrazyTown right now, and it is, but until the majority of Republicans walk away and denounce him – which isn’t going to happen – Trump has got the party machinery behind him.