Official Donald Trump for President thread (2 Viewers)

[BeaverCleaver]

Fact check: Trump defends claim on Oswald and Cruz's father

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/07/23/fact-check-trump-lee-harvey-oswald-rafael-cruz/87475714/

"Goldstone told us in a phone interview that he never claimed the man in the picture with Oswald was definitely Rafael Cruz, and he called Trump’s unqualified assertion that it is Cruz “stupid.”"

“All I did is point out the fact that on the cover of the National Enquirer, there’s a picture of him [Rafael Cruz] and crazy Lee Harvey Oswald having breakfast,” Trump said. “I had nothing to do with it. This was a magazine that frankly in many respects, should be very respected. They got O.J. They got Edwards. They got this. I mean, if that was The New York Times, they would have gotten Pulitzer prizes for their reporting.”

Yep....and never once did Trump say Cruz's father was BEHIND the plot to kill Kennedy....which is what you wrote.

 

[SoBeDad]

What roles would John Miller, John Baron and the National Enquirer have in a Trump presidency? 

 

[cstu]

Yep....and never once did Trump say Cruz's father was BEHIND the plot to kill Kennedy....which is what you wrote.

WTF do you think he was implying?

“His father was with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to Oswald's being — you know, shot. I mean, the whole thing is ridiculous,” Trump said Tuesday during a phone interview with Fox News. “What is this, right prior to his being shot, and nobody even brings it up. They don't even talk about that. That was reported, and nobody talks about it.”

“I mean, what was he doing — what was he doing with Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before the death? Before the shooting?” Trump continued. “It’s horrible.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/05/trump-ted-cruz-father-222730#ixzz4KdaVv3yG
Follow us: @politico on Twitter | Politico on Facebook

 

[BeaverCleaver]

WTF do you think he was implying?

  He made a stupid comment but it's a HUGE stretch to think he was implying he was behind it all.

 

[cstu]

  He made a stupid comment but it's a HUGE stretch to think he was implying he was behind it all.

“I mean, what was he doing — what was he doing with Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before the death? Before the shooting?” Trump continued. “It’s horrible.”

 

[BeaverCleaver]

 

[Bruce Dickinson]

What you say is true...I'm just having difficulties with how easy (IMO)people in these political threads throw out that word "dangerous"

way overused

Thank you for giving me the chance to clarify.  I empathize with feeling worn down by all the inflammatory, hyperbolic rhetoric that comes with election season.  In the future I will try harder to use specific descriptors instead of broad, potentially loaded words like "dangerous".

 

[badmojo1006]

What Does Trump's Promise Of A Nation 'Under One God' Really Mean?

"Imagine what our country could accomplish if we started working together as one people, under one God, saluting one flag," Trump said, drawing enthusiastic applause from the crowd at the Values Voter Summit.

Well, Christian, Jewish and Muslim are all under the same God. But I guess that means the rest of the religions and the atheists are screwed.

 

[msommer]

Insightful!

 

[badmojo1006]

Hillary and Trump are both dangerous

Not quite.

 

[BeaverCleaver]

Insightful!

 

[Bruce Dickinson]

Has he ever commented on Tony Schwartz, the ghostwriter of The Art of the Deal?  Schwartz spent 18 months with him and says he's clearly a sociopath.

At one point, Trump threatened to sue Schwartz to take away the ghostwriter's portion of the book's royalties: past, present, and future.  Don't recall how exactly Trump would get the disagreement into a courtroom, or if Schwartz criticizing Trump constituted a breach of contract.  

Dont know if you've seen the agreement the Trump campaign tried to get their campaign volunteers to sign.  It included terms like agreeing to never publicly criticize Trump for the rest of your life, and to not employ anyone who worked for or contributed to the Clinton campaign.   It's quite the document.

 

[Bob Magaw]

What Does Trump's Promise Of A Nation 'Under One God' Really Mean?

Well, Christian, Jewish and Muslim are all under the same God. But I guess that means the rest of the religions and the atheists are screwed.

Separation of church and state in the United States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_church_and_state_in_the_United_States

 

[badmojo1006]

Separation of church and state in the United States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_church_and_state_in_the_United_States

 

[HellToupee]

 

[3C's]

That's the "great" thing about Trump, he seldom says anything in situations like that. "I'm not saying it happened, but other people are saying it." He's tends to be a "kitty cat" like that. Kind of like calling someone weak for taking a couple of days off to recover from pneumonia when you took a military deferment for a sore foot.

 

[Joe Summer]

“I mean, what was he doing — what was he doing with Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before the death? Before the shooting?” Trump continued. “It’s horrible.”

Beaver had already moved the goalposts when he used the phrase "behind it all". Of course Trump never implied that Cruz's father masterminded the entire JFK assassination. He merely implied that Cruz's father was involved with Lee Harvey Oswald somehow. That's all. Two totally different things.

 

[Joe Summer]

Oh, and nevermind the fact that it wasn't even Cruz's father in the picture.

 

[BeaverCleaver]

Beaver had already moved the goalposts when he used the phrase "behind it all". Of course Trump never implied that Cruz's father masterminded the entire JFK assassination. He merely implied that Cruz's father was involved with Lee Harvey Oswald somehow. That's all. Two totally different things.

Magaw is the one that said he was behind it and cstu agreed.

 

[Bruce Dickinson]

From Dan Rather:

Donald Trump’s disdain, mockery, and antagonism of the press, whose freedoms are enshrined in the Bill of Rights and whose presence has provided ballast to our democracy since its inception, raises very serious questions about his fitness for the presidency of the United States.


For a long while, these thoughts have been coursing through my veins with concern and disbelief, and yet my abiding loyalty to the notion of fair, accurate and unbiased journalism held me in check from saying it out loud – much as I suspect it has muzzled the true feelings of many of my colleagues. But we must remember that Donald Trump knows this and cynically plays the press corps’ deep desire for fairness to his undeserved benefit. The latest, barring the traveling press from covering an event and using them as ridicule in a speech, are but the most recent chapters in a novel full of outrageous acts. And this sentiment apparently extends to members of his own family as witnessed by his daughter Ivanka’s actions in an interview with Cosmo.

I am well aware that I will be met with bile and venom for saying this, called a communist, a liberal in bed with Hillary Clinton, a washed-up joke. To quote Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind, “frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” Let others attack my motives. My conscience is clean. This is not about partisan politics, about who is right on immigration or gun control. This is about the very machinery that has allowed our American experiment to persist and thrive, a machinery which is far more fragile than we would like to believe.

Trump’s relationship with the press is at the heart of so much that is troubling about his candidacy - the secrecy, the lack of transparency on something as normal as tax returns, the flaunting of the very rules by which we elect our leaders, the appeasement of hate groups. And his embrace of Roger Ailes and Breitbart, institutions who have polluted press freedoms, is a further dangerous sign of decay.

And yet when presented with this challenge, too much of the press has been cowed into inaction. This is a man who can be fact-checked into obscurity by any second grader with an Internet connection. And yet when he issues a mealy-mouth non-apology about President Obama’s obvious pedigree as an American, here we are with too many in the press not acknowledging his years of lies (check your Twitter feeds about how the New York Times initially covered this event). All of this of course sets the stage for Trump to lie again about somehow birtherism being Clinton’s fault.

I fear that this mindset will infect the debates. Trump is already setting the stage for that. If you are moderating and are not going to fact check him, you might as well just roll campaign speeches live - far too many of which have been shown on television without being subjected to journalistic context. If these debates will be debates in name only, another opportunity for Trump to flout fairness by spewing his venom and bullshine, I say cancel them.

Enough is enough. It is a reality that every reporter must come to grips with. Trump is not a normal candidate. This is not a normal election. He will set a precedent that other demagogues will study and follow. Fear, combined with the lure of ratings, views, clicks and profits, have hypnotized too much of the press into inaction and false equivalency for far too long. I am optimistic the trance is being broken. Fear not the Internet trolls. Fear instead the judgement of history.

 

[3C's]

Magaw is the one that said he was behind it and cstu agreed.

 

 

[Rove!]

Dan Rather considers himself a spokesman for fair unbiased and accurate journalism

 

HFS, you can't make this stuff up

 

[3C's]

From Dan Rather:

Don't forget, Trump wants to "open up" libel lawd (laws, not lawd. Stupid ####### board software) so it's easier to sue the press.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

 @ Dan Rather.  He's one of the last people who as any right to lecture the rest of us on professional integrity.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

 @ Dan Rather.  He's one of the last people who as any right to lecture the rest of us on professional integrity.

 

[Bruce Dickinson]

Don't forget, Trump wants to "open up" libel lawd (laws, not lawd. Stupid ####### board software) so it's easier to sue the press.

If he gets Peter Thiel on the Supreme Court like he's hinted, just about every news organization that ever criticized Trump will get sued into obscurity.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

And  @ Dan Rather thinking that somebody is going to call him a communist for opposing Trump.  Is it 1950?

 

[Apple Jack]

The guy has 7 Peabodys and despite being misled on the W document has more journalistic integrity in his bowel movements than nearly all of today's media. Certainly than the right wing propaganda apparatus.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

The guy has 7 Peabodys and despite being misled on openly lying about the W document has more journalistic integrity in his bowel movements than nearly all of today's media. Certainly than the right wing propaganda apparatus.

And seriously, when was the last time you ever heard a Trump critic labeled a "communist?"  That's the strangest single item in that essay IMO.  

 

[James Daulton]

 @ Dan Rather.  He's one of the last people who as any right to lecture the rest of us on professional integrity.

What about what he said was wrong?

 

[IvanKaramazov]

What about what he said was wrong?

The stuff that he says about Trump is all correct.  It's that a) Dan Rather is absolutely the wrong person to deliver that message and b) the self-congratulatory first couple of paragraphs considering that his career ended in partisan self-immolation.

 

[James Daulton]

The stuff that he says about Trump is all correct.  It's that a) Dan Rather is absolutely the wrong person to deliver that message and b) the self-congratulatory first couple of paragraphs considering that his career ended in partisan self-immolation.

That's fine, but at the very least he's come out and said it.  No one else has done that that I've heard.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

Another way of putting it is that Donald Trump was able to get this far by convincing his voters that the mainstream media is out to get them and cannot be trusted.  Dan Rather is the poster boy for that argument.  If he wants to blame somebody for Donald Trump, he should look in the ####### mirror.  

 

[James Daulton]

Another way of putting it is that Donald Trump was able to get this far by convincing his voters that the mainstream media is out to get them and cannot be trusted.  Dan Rather is the poster boy for that argument.  If he wants to blame somebody for Donald Trump, he should look in the ####### mirror.  

Give in to the hate.  Let it flow through you.  Come to the dark side!

 

[IvanKaramazov]

Give in to the hate.  Let it flow through you.  Come to the dark side!

I have hated Dan Rather for quite some time.  This isn't new for me.  I'm not going to suddenly start liking the guy because he wrote a cringe-inducing article blasting some other guy I hate.

 

[Joe Summer]

Dan Rather is 84 years old and went off the deep end a long time ago.

 

[timschochet]

As far as calling him a Communist, one only has to go to Free Republic. That word is used often to describe anyone opposed to Donald Trump. 

Dan Rather is an imperfect messenger, just as Hillary Clinton is an imperfect candidate. Yet these are the people we have left standing between us and a proto-fascist becoming our next President. I don't think we can afford to wait any longer for more pristine defenders. 

 

[Grace Under Pressure]

I was going to vote for Trump but after that post I'll have to reconsider.

Vote for whoever, but it will be a shame if he dupes enough fine folks into voting for him. Hope there's a mirror nearby because if it happens those of us with a stake are pretty much screwed.

 

[HellToupee]

From Dan Rather:

Kenneth , what is the frequency 

 

[Grace Under Pressure]

Good note by Dan Rather but no one really cares Dan, sorry you don't pull weight like once before.

 

[HellToupee]

RNC Chairman: Party could penalize former GOP candidates who don’t endorse Donald Trump


Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said Sunday that it’s high time for Donald Trump’s former primary challengers to come on board and support his campaign—and suggested there could be trouble for them in 2020 or 2024 if they don’t.

“Those people need to get on board,” he told CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “And if they’re thinking they’re going to run again someday, I think that we’re going to evaluate the process – of the nomination process and I don’t think it’s going to be that easy for them.”

Several of Trump’s former Republican primary opponents, including Ohio Gov. John Kasich, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush have not endorsed Trump in the months since the GOP businessman secured the nomination. Asked explicitly whether that meant there would be penalties for the handful of 2016 Republican hopefuls who have not endorsed Trump if they opted to run again in 2020 or 2024, Priebus said nothing has been decided but that it’s something the party will “look at.”

All of the major Republican candidates, including Trump, signed a so-called “loyalty pledge” last summer stating that they would support the eventual Republican nominee “regardless of who it is.” The document wasn’t legally binding, but candidates were asked to sign it last summer after Trump at the time wouldn’t rule out a third-party bid if he lost the nomination.

“People in our party are talking about what we’re going to do about this. I mean there’s a ballot access issue in South Carolina. In order to be on the ballot in South Carolina, you actually have to pledge your support to the nominee, no matter who that person is,” Priebus said. “So what’s the penalty for that? It’s not a threat, but that’s just the question that we have a process in place.”

“And if a private entity puts forward a process and has agreement with the participants in that process, and those participants don’t follow through with the promises that they made in that process, what-- what should a private party do about that if those same people come around in four or eight years?” Priebus continued.

With regard to Trump’s admission Friday that President Obama was born in the U.S., putting to rest his five years as one of the most visible proponents of the “birther” movement,” Priebus defended Trump’s long refusal to put the issue to rest.

“The point is people are asking him about it. People weren’t asking him about it for a long time,” Priebus said. “And he came out and said, ‘Listen, I was involved in trying to figure this out, as well. And I’ve determined that the president was born in Hawaii.’ Just like I’ve said for years. So this is not like, for me, a mystery.”

He also added that he believes, as many Trump aides have said in the past few days, that Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign was first responsible for the “birther” movement—a claim that Clinton and her aides have expressly denied.

When moderator John Dickerson responded that there was “no evidence” Clinton herself was involved in spreading these rumors in 2008, Priebus suggested there was enough “circumstantial evidence” to make it clear that either she or her campaign were “definitely involved.”

“People get convicted every single day with circumstantial evidence that is enough to -- to tip the scale,” Priebus said. “And by the preponderance of evidence before us, Hillary Clinton, or her campaign, were definitely involved in this issue. So we can’t keep saying it’s not true. That’s ridiculous.”

Priebus also said he didn’t believe the issue was something driving excitement among Republican voters, as Trump has previously suggested.

“I don’t think Donald Trump was thinking about 2016 in 2011,” he said. “It was an issue that he was interested in. It was an issue that I believe, and I think the preponderance of evidence shows Hillary Clinton started it.”

And with just over a week until the first presidential debate between Clinton and Trump, Priebus said he believes everything is “square” with the process. This summer, Trump claimed the process was “rigged” because two of the four scheduled debates would air during NFL games; at the time, Priebus told “Face the Nation”there needed to be more “give and take” with the Commission on Presidential Debates.

“I think it’s square,” he said Sunday. “And I think people are ready to move forward and move on with this. And I think that first debate is going to be probably one of the biggest events in the history of presidential politics.”

 

[Ridgeback]

Have you guys seen Trump's new frog mascot? He's basically a nazi/fascist type of figure that all the white supremacists are using as a quasi-secret symbol to each other to signal hey, don't worry man, I hate brown people just like you, we're cool. Except now everyone knows what it means. Pepe the frog they call this thing. Unbelievable. 

From Orange Hitler? Shocking.

 

[FishTacoTuesday]

I really thought Dan Rather was dead.  RIP in advance. 

 

[Dondante]

This fear monger has got to go. I don't care how it happens or who does it. What a despicable human being. I'd vote for 100 more years of Obama before I voted for this scumbag. If you're a supporter of this reprehensible stooge you are my enemy. 

 

[3C's]

Bad enough that they had the stupid pledge to begin with. Then it became worse that actual Republicans have to "pledge" support for a guy who isn't a Republican. Now it's laughable that the stooge running the show will threaten those who refuse.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

The only Republicans I'll even consider supporting in 2020 are the ones who refuse to campaign with Trump.  Anybody who honors that "loyalty pledge" can bugger off.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

I don't think Reince is going to be around very long to enforce that threat. He sounds like a substitute teacher who has lost control of his classroom right now.

 

[3C's]

I don't think Reince is going to be around very long to enforce that threat. He sounds like a substitute teacher who has lost control of his classroom right now.

Probably the only reason he hasn't been dumped yet is they don't want to give the Democrats more ammo.

 

[Dondante]

Good info here.

You're on the list. 

 

[RBM]

This fear monger has got to go. I don't care how it happens or who does it. What a despicable human being. I'd vote for 100 more years of Obama before I voted for this scumbag. If you're a supporter of this reprehensible stooge you are my enemy. 

 Fiery