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Donald Trump Has The Bush Camp Divided

Donald Trump Has The Bush Camp Divided

It’s no secret that Donald Trump is splitting the Republican Party in half.

While some neoconservatives have thrown their support behind his campaign, other stalwarts of the GOP establishment have stayed silent on the ticking Trump time-bomb — and a few are defecting entirely to support Hillary Clinton.

Now, this emerging rift seems to be pulling apart the party’s most important dynasty: the Bushes and their retainers. Though many members of the Bush family itself as well as their former advisers are hesitant to endorse Trump, hawks like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld have come out in support of his campaign.

Indeed, Cheney and Rumsfeld, who served as defense secretaries in the older and younger Bush administrations, respectively, have enthusiastically backed the presumptive GOP nominee.

In a quixotic mood, Rumsfeld told Fox News’ Greta van Susteren on Wednesday that Trump’s unpredictability makes him the stronger candidate. “On the Democrats’ side, we have a known known. On the Republican side, we have a recent entry, who’s a known unknown,” he said, whimsically (and weirdly) recalling his now-infamous line about weapons of mass destruction (or lack thereof) in Iraq.

As for Cheney, it has been over a month since the former vice president announced that he will continue his tradition of supporting the party’s nominee.

Cheney and Rumsfeld were heavily influenced by other senior officials in the Bush administrations who pushed aggressively for the 2003 Iraq invasion.

The same can’t be said of George H.W. Bush. Though his consistent endorsement of the GOP presidential nominee stretches back half a century, a spokesman told the Washington Post that Bush “was retired from politics.”

A spokesman for George W. Bush, meanwhile, said the 43rd president “does not plan to participate in or comment on the presidential campaign,” according to the Financial Times. As for Jeb Bush, his disdain for his former primary opponent needs no explanation, as his refusal to back Trump drew attention during the primaries and continues to make headlines.

Some of the Bush administrations’ foreign policy experts aren’t convinced by Trump, either.

Brent Scowcroft, the national security adviser for George H.W. Bush and Gerald Ford, became one the latest Republicans to defect to the Clinton camp this week, as he lauded her foreign policy experience.

“She brings deep expertise in international affairs and a sophisticated understanding of the world, which I believe are essential for the commander-in-chief,” said Scowcroft, who also worked in the second Bush White House, according to CNN.

Richard Armitage, the younger Bush’s first deputy secretary of state, told Politico last week that he could not support Trump in the general election.

“He doesn’t appear to be a Republican, he doesn’t appear to want to learn about issues. So, I’m going to vote for Mrs. Clinton,” Armitage said.

Perhaps some of the strongest criticism came from Barbara Bush herself, who called Trump “a comedian” and “a showman” during a CBS interview in February, adding that his strategy — or lack thereof — goes against “how things get done in this country, truthfully.”

She also called Trump’s approach to women “unbelievable,” saying, “I don’t know how women can vote for someone who said what he said about Megyn Kelly.”

During the CBS interview, Jeb Bush added, “I don’t think a president would have ever shouted profanities in a speech in front of thousands of people with kids in the crowd.”

“Who did that?” his mother asked, as if in shock.   

“Your buddy,” Jeb answered. “He does it all the time.”

 

Photo: Former U.S. first lady Laura Bush and former President George W. Bush join his brother Republican U.S. presidential candidate Jeb Bush on the campaign trail at a campaign rally in North Charleston, South Carolina

Three Publications (Total!) Have Endorsed Donald Trump

Three Publications (Total!) Have Endorsed Donald Trump

Donald Trump has been endorsed for president by a total of three major publications: The National Enquirer, The New York Observer, and The New York Post.

The endorsements might have been a shock to the media world, but they weren’t terribly surprising: the Post, the latest paper to endorse the real estate mogul turned racist politician, has been a propagator of racist tropes for years. In endorsing Trump, albeit in as lukewarm a manner as possible, they provide the thinnest layer of legitimacy to the dog-whistle-turned-megaphone rhetoric of the Republican frontrunner.

“Trump is now an imperfect messenger carrying a vital message,” read the Post‘s editorial. “But he reflects the best of ‘New York values’ — and offers the best hope for all Americans who rightly feel betrayed by the political class.”

Of course, what those New York values actually are remains unknown, even to the editorial board. It could be “challenging the victim culture that has turned into a victimizing culture.” Or it could be Trump’s rhetoric, which was admittedly “amateurish, divisive — and downright coarse.”

The New York Observeralso endorsed Trump, just a couple days before the Post. The Observer, owned by Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, addressed that conflict of interest in the first sentence of their endorsement, writing that “Donald Trump is the father-in-law of the Observer’s publisher. That is not a reason to endorse him.”

The endorsement went on to mention the eternal poster child for Republican voters, Ronald Reagan, to whom Trump and his campaign were compared, despite their obviously opposite takes on, say, Trump’s central issue of immigration. But even the Observer couldn’t deny that Trump was rough around the edges, and admonished Republicans opposed to him to “help him grow as a candidate and a leader.”

Unlike the Post and Observer, whose editorials attempted to present Trump as someone who could behave presidential when the time came, The National Enquirer’s endorsement read like one big pro-Trump Facebook comment. “Trump Must Be Prez!” it blared. “Nobody understands the economy better than this self-made billionaire, and only he is willing and able to fix it.”

The Enquirer also predicted happily that Trump would “chase down illegal immigrants and toss out the criminals who came streaming through our open borders.”

Trump is a good friend of the supermarket tabloid’s owner, David Pecker, who even responded to questions from The Daily Beast about the influence of their friendship in the paper’s endorsement: “There have been few presidential candidates in recent history that have generated the kind of discussion that Donald Trump has,” he said. “It’s no surprise that the readership of the Enquirer recently told us that they wanted to read more about Trump than any other 2016 candidate. The coverage of the Enquirer reflects what its 6 million readers want, and expect, from the publication which has shown no hesitation in presenting an unvarnished look at past or current candidates for president.”

The National Enquirer mostly trades in gossip, but it has managed to cut short the presidential campaigns of Bob Dole, Jesse Jackson and John Edwards, and staff at the paper are reportedly a bit annoyed that they can’t apply the same scrutiny to Trump: who will delve into the juicy “scoop” that he once paid for a woman’s abortion?!

There are around 2.7 million registered Republicans in New York state, the majority of whom are leaning toward Trump. While it was expected that the developer would win his home state, the endorsements awarded by those three newspapers were weak ones. Will that matter for Trump? Probably not: his supporters like him because the media hates him, and aside from these three publications, most of the media does hate Donald Trump. That type of endorsement is much more important.

Photo: Flickr user torbakhopper.

New York’s Politicians Overwhelmingly Endorse Clinton

New York’s Politicians Overwhelmingly Endorse Clinton

New York’s primary is still two weeks away, but Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton have already brought the full force of their campaigns to the Empire State, opening offices and staging town halls and rallies heralding the upcoming vote.

Clinton, as the race’s frontrunner and a former two-term U.S. senator from New York, has been able to rely on the endorsements of nearly every established Democrat in the state, among them Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, New York’s two most prominent political figures. She also has the backing of most of the state’s super delegates, party fixtures including (obviously) former President Bill Clinton and Senator Chuck Schumer, who many predict will become the next Senate Democratic leader. Kirsten Gillibrand, New York’s junior senator, also endorsed Clinton.

Sanders’s supporters aren’t nearly as high-profile.

Luis Sepulveda, the Bronx Assemblyman who spoke at Sanders’s rally last week, told the New York Observer that he was opposed to Clinton’s support of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Bill Clinton’s tough-on-crime legislation, the Defense of Marriage Act, and the trade agreements of the 1990s.

“I’ve never really understood the Latino and African-American population’s fascination with the Clintons,” Sepulveda told the Observer. “All these things she’s supported I’ve found very disturbing.”

Sanders has also collected the endorsements of Bill Perkins and James Sanders, Jr., two popular state senators from Harlem and Queens, respectively. Perkins was also the first elected New York official to endorse Barack Obama in 2008. Rafael Espinal, a New York City councilman, echoed comments made by Sanders’s other endorsers that the Vermont senator is the best choice to make his constituents’ voices heard.

The state’s primary could make or break either campaign. If Clinton loses in New York, Sanders can claim victory in the second biggest Democratic primary of the season, in his opponent’s own home state. If Clinton wins, it will give her a delegate advantage Sanders can’t hope to recover from, all but finalizing her claim to the nomination.

As political commentator Van Jones explained during a recent interview with Democracy Now!, “New York City is the war to settle the score inside the Democratic Party. The Clinton forces understand there is a rebellion in this party. Under ordinary circumstances, it would already be over, because the big donors would have taken the checks back. There are no big checks. This is a people’s movement. They are going to have to bury this movement in New York City, and they know it.”

The latest polls show Clinton leading Sanders by 11 points in the state. In a closed primary like New York’s, only registered Democrats can mark a presidential preference — tougher conditions for Sanders, who has relied on his popularity with independent voters to bolster his polling numbers. Nevertheless, the Vermont senator started off more than 20 points behind Clinton in the state, and with two weeks of heavy campaigning ahead, a lot could change in the meantime.

Photo: Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at a campaign rally at Carl Hayden Community High School in Phoenix, Arizona March 21, 2016. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

Clinton Wins Endorsement From U.S. Ironworkers’ Union

Clinton Wins Endorsement From U.S. Ironworkers’ Union

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Democrat Hillary Clinton on Monday won the endorsement of the ironworkers’ union, adding to her front-runner status in the race for her party’s U.S. presidential nomination.

“While the council felt that several other candidates align with ironworker values, none compare to Secretary Clinton when it comes to putting those beliefs into practice,” the union said in a statement.

“Clinton’s record of looking out for the jobs that union members rely on was the largest factor in the council’s decision.”

Clinton is working to build a broad coalition within her party now in a bid to avoid a damaging primary fight and enter the general election in November 2016 with a strong base of support.

The unanimous vote on Friday among the ironworkers’ general executive council, announced on Monday, brings to 14 the number of unions that have thrown their weight behind the former secretary of state.

In giving their stamp of approval to Clinton, a number of unions have alluded to their assessment that she is the best-placed Democrat to perhaps win the general election.

Her main rival, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, has deep ties to the labor movement, but he has struggled to gain lasting traction against Clinton. In addition, his self-imposed label as a democratic socialist can be confusing or concerning to many voters.

“Secretary Clinton’s unmatched experience in government will enable her to deliver on her promises in ways the other candidates cannot,” the ironworkers said on Monday.

Clinton has support from 49 percent of her party for the nomination, versus 34 percent for Sanders, according to a rolling 5-day Reuters/Ipsos poll dated Nov. 20.

(Reporting by Luciana Lopez; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at a campaign stop at Clinton Middle School in Clinton, Iowa, November 22, 2015. REUTERS/Mark Kauzlarich . SAP is the sponsor of this coverage which is independently produced by the staff of Reuters News Agency.