President-elect Donald Trump should not select Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus as his Chief of Staff, says Michael Savage, the national talk radio host and author of the new book Scorched Earth: Restoring the Country After Obama.
Priebus is “the enemy within,” Savage warns.
“He’s the RNC! Everything the voters rejected,” Savage tells Breitbart News. “He will steer Trump away from every policy we sent him to D.C. to change. He is the enemy within. He is [Paul] Ryan, [Mitch] McConnell, and the Old Guard. They do not want change. ‘Out with the old, in with the new.'”
A close Ryan ally, Priebus was responsible for the GOP “autopsy” following the Romney-Ryan loss of 2012.
One of its conclusions held that, to win elections, Republicans must embrace an immigration agenda that would import future voters who tend to overwhelmingly support Democrat policies.
The Priebus manifesto argued against opposing amnesty and appealing to the Republican electorate’s “core constituency.”
We must embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform. If we do not, our Party’s appeal will continue to shrink to its core constituencies only,” the Priebus report stated.
By contrast, for years Savage has argued that Republican candidates should run campaigns on “borders, language, and culture.”
“I call him ‘Rinse,'” Savage said of Priebus, adding that’s “what Trump should do with his advice.”
Savage’s talk radio show, which is one of the most listened-to talk radio programs in the country, reaches an audience over 20 million listeners and is syndicated by over some 400 stations nationwide. This week, Savage will be inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in the category of Spoken Word On-Air Personality.
Nearly a month after being named the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party, Donald Trump has finally earned the vote of House Speaker Paul Ryan.
Far from a wholehearted embrace of his party's 2016 standard-bearer's policies and temperament, Ryan's announcement on Thursday mainly emphasized that Trump would be a better ally to advance Ryan's policy goals than likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
The announcement, published in a column in his home town newspaper the GazetteXtra, failed to include the word "endorsement," instead indicating only that the Wisconsin lawmaker will cast his vote for Trump at the ballot box. Ryan wrote that he came to his decision after several conversations with Trump.
"I feel confident he would help us turn the ideas ... into laws to help improve people's lives," he wrote.
NBC News had proclaimed Trump the presumptive nominee 29 days ago on May 4, after Trump's final GOP rivals exited the race. But Ryan withheld his support at the time, instead publicizing his concerns with the likely nominee.
Ryan suggested then that it was up to Trump to unify the party after a primary that resulted in a nominee that many establishment Republicans did not prefer.
"I think the bulk of the burden on unifying the party will have to come from our presumptive nominee," Ryan said last month. "I'm not there right now. And I hope to though, and I want to. But I think what is required is that we unify this party."
In the column published Thursday, Ryan did not sugarcoat his continuing disagreements with Trump.
"It's no secret that he and I have our differences. I won't pretend otherwise. And when I feel the need to, I'll continue to speak my mind," Ryan wrote. "To enact (Republican) ideas, we need a Republican president willing to sign them into law. That's why, when he sealed the nomination, I could not offer my support for Donald Trump before discussing policies and basic principles."
While it's hardly a glowing recommendation, Ryan's willingness to support Trump presents yet another obstacle to the "Stop Trump" movement as establishment Republicans are slowly lining up behind their nominee, albeit reluctantly.
A primary reason for that unification is Republicans' common enemy in Hillary Clinton, a fact not lost on Ryan in his announcement Thursday.
"One person who we know won't support it is Hillary Clinton. A Clinton White House would mean four more years of liberal cronyism and a government more out for itself than the people it serves. Quite simply, she represents all that our agenda aims to fix," Ryan wrote.
Ryan was slow to the Trump train after expressing concerns over some of Trump's comments and positions. The two met twice in May, after Trump was deemed the presumptive nominee, but an endorsement wasn't immediate after the meetings.
"But (I) have a nice relationship with him. And then all of a sudden, he gets on and he does this number. So I'm not exactly sure what he has in mind. But that's okay," Trump added.
In Ryan's column Thursday, he said Trump can "help us" move forward on their policy domestic and foreign policy priories.
"As I said from the start, my goal has been to unite the party so we can win in the fall. And if we're going to unite, it has to be over ideas," Ryan said, seeming to get behind him for the sake of the party and not his satisfaction with the person.
AFTER TRUMP COLLECTED MORE THAN 1237 DELEGATES, RNC & GOP ESTABLISHMENT LEADERS STILL PLAY HARDBALL.
Sources: CBS News, Fox News, Youtube
It's Official people!
Billionaire Business Mogul Donald J. Trump has finally secured the required 1237 delegates to be officially crowned as the 2016 GOP Presidential nominee. Actually Trump garnered more than 1237 delegates.
However RNC officials and GOP Establishment leaders have yet to agree with Voters that Trump is IT!
When GOP party leaders catch up with the Voters who elected them into public office?
Are RNC and GOP party officials still planning a Coup this July at the RNC convention in Cleveland?
John Trandem wanted to be the delegate who would put Donald Trump over the top, giving him enough delegates to clinch the Republican presidential nomination.
But when he was contacted by an Associated Press reporter, the AP delegate count stood at 1,235 — two delegates short.
"I'm happy to be No. 1,237," said Trandem, a small business owner from North Dakota. "But I won't commit until you're at 1,236."
Trandem is an unbound delegate, meaning he is free to support the candidate of his choice. All 28 Republican delegates in North Dakota are unbound because the state party declined to have a primary or caucus.
Trandem, who lives north of Fargo, was reached on his wife's mobile phone. He was on his way to an event where he and other North Dakota delegates would meet Trump, giving the billionaire businessman enough delegates to clinch the nomination.
Wanting to break the story first, reporters were calling and emailing unbound delegates across the country.
Trandem was for Trump, but he didn't want to say so unless he was Mister 1,237.
No problem, he had a solution. He handed the phone to another delegate, state Rep. Ben Koppleman, who was riding with him.
After Koppleman confirmed he was committed to Trump, Trandem took the phone back.
"Are you at 1,236?" he asked.
Yes, he was told. "Then I'm the one!"
Minutes later the AP declared that Trump had secured enough delegates to clinch the nomination.
Later on Thursday, both men shook hands with Trump before sharing a stage with him during a news conference in Bismarck, North Dakota.
TRUMP & RYAN ARE PLANNING TO TALK OUT DIFFERENCES.
IS PAUL RYAN BEING BLACKMAILED?
Sources: ABC, Fox News, CNN, WSJ, Talking Points Memo, YouTube
US House Speaker and staunch Republican Paul Ryan publicly denounces his support for presumptive 2016 GOP Presidential Candidate Donald J Trump, yet no one thinks this is strange or out of character for Ryan.
Both Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney publicly state they would rather support Hillary Clinton than Trump and yet no one questions these unusual, out of character remarks from these two GOP Giants?
Could it be that the NSA has collected dirt on Ryan and Romney and they are being Blackmailed by the Democrats?
Trump and Ryan are planning to meet in the near future to discuss their ideological differences.
Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump will travel to Washington, D.C., Thursday for a series of meetings with top Republican leaders in an effort to bring the party together after a messy and divisive primary race.
Trump has at least three meetings planned with GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill, who largely spurned his presidential campaign during the GOP primary.
He'll first meet with House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, and Republican National CommitteeChairman Reince Priebus at the RNC at 9 a.m. Trump will then meet with Ryan and the other members on his leadership team: House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-California, House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-Louisiana, Republican Conference Chair Cathy McMorris-Rodgers, R-Washington, and Deputy Majority Whip Patrick McHenry, R-North Carolina.
Ryan and McMorris-Rodgers have not yet endorsed Trump's campaign, while McCarthy and Scalise have said they will support the Republican nominee.
Later Thursday morning, Trump will meet with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, along with his leadership team: Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, John Barrasso, R-Wyoming, and John Thune, R-South Dakota. Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Mississippi, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee -- Senate Republicans' campaign arm -- will also attend the meeting at the NRSC headquarters.
One person Trump won't be meeting? His former rival, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who told reporters today that Trump has not been in touch with him. "There are no plans for us to meet," Cruz said.
TRUMP'S BLACK VLOGGERS SILENCED BY DEMOCRATS & GOP ESTABLISHMENT:
ONLY BLACK VLOGGERS WHO SUPPORT DEMOCRATS RECEIVE INTERNET
TRAFFIC.
Sources: Fox News, Youtube
Is it a coincidence that during the 2016 Presidential election only Black political vloggers who support Hillary Clinton's campaign are receiving a decent amount of Internet traffic?
No it is not a coincidence!
It's not about using a better camera or SEO tricks, it's about Dirty 2016 Politics and limiting Freedom of Speech.
FYI: Cable conglomerates Comcast and Time Warner are complicit in this political effort to stifle Freedom of Speech.
In the video above I clearly explain how Democrat and GOP Establishment leaders are intentionally trying to silence Black political vloggers who choose to support Donald J Trump's bid for US President.
Both Clinton and Sanders would beat any GOP candidate in the state in November, poll shows.
Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump have significant leads ahead of the primaries in their home state of New York next month, a poll released Thursday showed.
Mrs. Clinton, a former U.S. senator from New York, tops her Democratic rival, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, 54% to 42% among likely Democratic primary voters, according to the Quinnipiac University poll.
Mr. Trump, a Manhattan real-estate developer, leads with 56% among likely GOP primary voters, followed by Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas with 20% and Gov. John Kasich of Ohio with 19%, the poll showed.
“The home-court advantage helps both party’s front-runners in the presidential primaries in New York,” said Maurice Carroll, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll.
Among Democrats, women favored Mrs. Clinton over Mr. Sanders, while white primary voters were divided with 48% for Mrs. Clinton and 47% for Mr. Sanders. Mrs. Clinton continues to dominate Mr. Sanders with black voters, beating him 66% to 31% in the state.
In the GOP, Mr. Trump holds double-digit leads among both genders.
The poll found both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders would beat any of the Republican candidates in the November general election.
The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points on the Democratic side and plus or minus 4.6 percentage points on the Republican side.
Trump confidant Roger Stone spoke with Frank Morano on AM970 The Answer in New Jersey/New York on Sunday morning about allegations that he planted the story in this week's National Enquirer accusing Ted Cruz of multiple extra-marital affairs.
"He’s a lawyer himself," he said, "so why won’t he sue? It won’t cost him anything. To be absolutely clear — Cruz won’t sue because the allegations are largely true."
~ Basics:
-- "The Rubio campaign elected not to use this information, but they kept it as a hedge about some of the allegations about Rubio's personal life."
-- "Cruz holds himself out as a moral exemplar, and I think it is the hypocrisy that once again is problematic here. Where's his lawsuit? Where's his $100 million lawsuit against the National Enquirer..."
-- "This is very much like the John Edwards case, when the Washington Post, who is chasing this story, or the AP, who is chasing the story. The dirty little secret here is this isn't just the National Enquirer, this is major media organizations. Every major media organization in the country is pursuing this story. And they are well familiar with the names."
-- "And you have to wonder whether these women, one of whom worked for the Carly Fiorina campaign and then shortly thereafter Ted Cruz pays Carly half a million dollars. Ted despises Carly, and Carly despises Ted. What is the $500,000 for? Can you say hush money?"
-- "Maybe Donald Trump is talking about Heidi's mental breakdown, and the fact that she was found by the local police wandering and disoriented, and she was deemed to be a threat to herself."
-- "Heidi with her husband posing as a conservative Republican was a top aide to Condoleezza Rice at the National Security Council prior to going to the U.S. Trade Rep's office where she was a top aide for Robert Zelick, who took her to Goldman Sachs -- You remember who they are? The bank you and I bailed out.-- Goldman then subsequently gave a million dollar illegal sweetheart deal to the Cruz campaign, which he lied about."
FRANK MORANO: We have Roger Stone, noted New York Times bestselling author, longtime Republican political consultant and former advisor to Donald Trump, and the only person, who you heard Ted Cruz in the clip I just played you, the only person quoted on the record in this incredible National Enquirer article...
I don't know where to begin, clearly the Cruz campaign has blamed you for everything except for kidnapping the Lindbergh baby, why are? Everybody is acknowledging, even the NYT today, that this attempt to dig up these Cruz extramarital affairs was originally carried out by the Rubio campaign, why are they making you the guy everyone is deciding to blame?
ROGER STONE: I guess it is an attempt at deflection.
You've been in politics a long time, the only thing worse that being talked about is not being talked about. So I guess, I have a brand, perhaps a brand for rough and tumble politics, a brand for the dramatic, but in this particular case, the private detectives who are specifically cited in the article... were actually working for and paid by Marco Rubio.
I believe the Rubio campaign elected not to use this information, but they kept it as a hedge about some of the allegations about Rubio's personal life, and in the end they elected not to use it.
And before you knew it he was out of the race.
I think these private detectives got paid twice. They got paid once when they did the original work for Marco Rubio, and they got paid again when they on their own went ahead and sold it to the National Enquirer. They will admit that they pay for information they can confirm.
But in this case, I can tell you categorically, I did not plant the story in the National Enquirer, and then blaming Donald Trump or his campaign is somewhat outrageous. I never discussed this with Donald or anyone in his campaign.
All I did do, when a longtime reporter from the National Enquirer, who I used to know when she was at the New York Post, and before that at the UK Daily Mail, called and asked for a comment, and I was happy to give a comment on the record: "If this is proven, it would be highly problematic for Ted's image, since it is built around his moral superiority, and his appeal to evangelical Christians...
MORANO: Why should we care about who Ted Cruz sleeps with?
STONE: Neither you or I are running for president... And he is, and he holds himself out as a moral exemplar, and I think it is the hypocrisy that once again is problematic here.
Where's his lawsuit? Where's his $100 million lawsuit against the National Enquirer...
This is very much like the John Edwards case, when the Washington Post, who is chasing this story, or the AP, who is chasing the story. The dirty little secret here is this isn't just the National Enquirer, this is major media organizations. Every major media organization in the country is pursuing this story. And they are well familiar with the names.
And you have to wonder whether these women, one of whom worked for the Carly Fiorina campaign and then shortly thereafter Ted Cruz pays Carly half a million dollars. Ted despises Carly, and Carly despises Ted. What is the $500,000 for?
Can you say hush money?
He [Ted Cruz] specifically called me a henchman, henchmen get paid. I'm not paid anything by the Trump campaign, so therefore by definition I can't be a henchmen...
I think he's the one who has been copulating with rodents...
MORANO: Donald Trump did tweet "I'll spill the beans on your wife," do you understand where those people are coming from? Look, Roger Stone has a long history of this stuff, and this story comes out just a few days after Donald Trump tweets that pseudo threat against Heidi? I mean, some people might say that is too much of a coincidence?
STONE: The scandal doesn't have to do with Heidi.
Maybe Donald Trump is talking about Heidi's mental breakdown, and the fact that she was found by the local police wandering and disoriented, and she was deemed to be a threat to herself, maybe they're talking about they fact that Heidi with her husband posing as a conservative Republican was a top aide to Condoleezza Rice at the National Security Council prior to going to the U.S. Trade Rep's office where she was a top aide for Robert Zelick, who took her to Goldman Sachs -- You remember who they are? The bank you and I bailed out.-- Goldman then subsequently gave a million dollar illegal sweetheart deal to the Cruz campaign, which he lied about.
He said the infusion of cash to his campaign came from his wife cashing in his reitrement. That's a lie. All of that pretains to Heidi, none of this does, this pretains to Ted Cruz and his zipper.
If GOP leaders really want to stop Trump, they need to be willing to lose the election.
Donald Trump is a moral monster.
He wants to deport America’s 11 million unauthorized immigrants and build a wall on the Mexican border.
He wants to kill the children of suspected terrorists and bring torture back to American intelligence gathering.
He wants to ban Muslims (including citizens) from entering the United States, and he openly courts white supremacists for support.
And yet, he is leading the Republican race for president, with more votes and delegates than anyone else in the race.
For Republican elites, this fact is intolerable, which is why Mitt Romney—former Massachusetts governor, two-time presidential candidate, and one-time nominee—stepped to the plate on Thursday to oppose Trump’s march to the nomination with a speech at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. His case was simple: “[I]f we Republicans choose Donald Trump as our nominee, the prospects for a safe and prosperous future are greatly diminished.”
To that point, Romney attacked Trump on all fronts. He blasted him on domestic policy. “His proposed 35 percent tarifflike penalties would instigate a trade war that would raise prices for consumers, kill export jobs, and lead entrepreneurs and businesses to flee America,” Romney said. “His tax plan, in combination with his refusal to reform entitlements and to honestly address spending would balloon the deficit and the national debt.”
Romney then hit him on foreign policy. “Trump’s bombast is already alarming our allies and fueling the enmity of our enemies.
Insulting all Muslims will keep many of them from fully engaging with us in the urgent fight against ISIS,” he said. He made real and effective digs at Trump’s business acumen—“His bankruptcies have crushed small businesses and the men and women who worked for them”—and questioned Trump’s intelligence and honesty, aiming straight at Trump’s appeal.
“Dishonesty is Trump’s hallmark,” said Romney. “His imagination must not be married to real power.”
Romney was strong and confident. He was detailed and specific. But he wasn’t effective. For all of his vehemence and disgust, Romney fell short with his saturation attack on Trump, for all the reasons that most GOP attacks have missed the mark.
To start, there’s no self-awareness. Romney didn’t say a word about his aggressive play for Trump’s endorsement in the 2012 presidential election. You can watch the press conference, where an effusive Romney hailed Trump as a figure par excellence:
“There are some things that you just can’t imagine happening in your life. This is one of them. Being in Donald Trump’s magnificent hotel and having his endorsement is a delight. I am so honored and pleased to have his endorsement.”
This wasn’t a throwaway moment in Romney’s campaign. By that point, Trump was known for his racist “birtherism” and careless demagoguery. Romney chose to ignore this to win modest support from the GOP base.
And by chasing Trump, Romney helped legitimize him as a figure in the Republican Party. To have any credibility in his present crusade against Trump, Romney needed to apologize. He needed to own his mistake and make that awareness a departure point for his case against “the Donald”—a warning, of sorts, from someone who was taken in by Trump and his charms.
Romney didn’t do this. Instead, well after his speech, he sent a tweet. “If Trump had said 4 years ago the things he says today about the KKK, Muslims, Mexicans, disabled, I would NOT have accepted his endorsement,” said Romney, ignoring Trump’s birtherism.
But then, Romney doesn’t seem to fully understand Trump’s appeal to Republican voters. Racism is one part of it.
The other is deep economic insecurity, fueled by years of declining wages and supercharged by the Great Recession. Which is why Romney’s attack on economics—Trump refuses to “reform entitlements”—is a misfire. Far from undermining Trump, it emphasizes his appeal: that he’ll protect retirement programs and bring security to middle-class (white) Americans. Trump’s voters don’t want to fight for survival in the free market. They want protection. They want to be safe.
By themselves, these mistakes weren’t fatal. The fact that a former GOP presidential nominee is speaking against a prospective one is almost enough—this is the dynamic that presages a failed campaign in November—and Romney deserves credit for it.
But he undermines this by making a moral case against Trump that’s still subordinate to other concerns. Rather than ask Republicans to reject Trump because he’s immoral, Romney (and other Republicans) harp on one particular point: Trump will lose the election. “A person so untrustworthy and dishonest as Hillary Clinton must not become president,” said Romney “But a Trump nomination enables her victory.”
This is the unshielded exhaust pipe of the elite Republican argument against Trump—the fatal flaw that undermines the entire structure. First, there’s the fact that if the core objection is partisan—to stop Hillary Clinton—then Romney is a terrible messenger.
As the GOP nominee in 2012, he didn’t just lose to Barack Obama, he lost badly, in an election that the party sold as a cakewalk, where Americans would welcome Republicans as liberators from a failed administration.
They were wrong. And now, Republican voters believe Trump is their best chance to beat Democrats in the fall. After all, he’s a fighter. Just look at his response to Romney’s speech, mocking Romney for seeking his support: “I could have said, ‘Mitt, drop to your knees.’ He would have dropped to his knees.”
Instead of making the morality of the case subordinate to the electoral calculation, Romney and other anti-Trump Republicans need to make the election subordinate to morality. If Trump is more than a threat to the GOP—if he, as Romney says would lead this nation “into the abyss”—then Republicans need to say they’re willing to lose the election, and hand the Oval Office to Hillary Clinton, if it means stopping Trump.
They don’t have to endorse Clinton, but they need to say that, if Trump is the nominee, they will not support him. It’s the only step that might shatter Trump’s coalition, or—in the fall—keep party unity from giving Trump a fighting chance, ending his viability as a general election candidate.
It is a terrible choice to have to make for the party men and women of the GOP. But if Romney is right—if Trump is a threat to American democracy itself—then it’s the only weapon they have left.
During the Republican presidential primary campaign, Donald Trump called Ben Carson "pathological" and compared his temper to that of a child molester.
But no matter. As with Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, Carson had perfectly logical self-interested reasons for endorsing Trump.
Politicians are always tempted to back the inevitable winner, in an effort to get in his or her good graces. But a Trump endorsement is more likely than usual to pay off in the form of power or influence within an administration.
At the endorsement news conference on Friday, Carson was asked whether he would be interested in serving in Trump's administration. Carson said he and Trump had already agreed he would be involved in formulating policy.
"I would be very interested in helping to achieve the goal of saving America and making it great," he said.
A normal candidate comes into a campaign with a huge entourage of operatives, allies, and experts — staffers from a Senate office or a gubernatorial administration, councils of policy experts advising a campaign, longtime political supporters, major donors. When you endorse a regular candidate like Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, you're getting in line behind those people in the pursuit of power in the administration.
Trump has no such entourage. When Christie endorsed him, he became overnight Trump's most important political ally. He probably thinks the endorsement put him in excellent position to be vice president — or at least attorney general — and he's probably right.
Trump's complete lack of ideological principles is, perversely, another good reason to endorse him. If you think Trump is an empty vessel, being one of his early prominent backers puts you in a good position to fill the vessel with whatever ideas you think are good.
Now consider Ben Carson. Would a President Cruz or President Marco Rubio be likely to allow Carson within a mile of the policymaking apparatus? Of course not. They already have strongly held policy views and cadres of policy advisers more qualified than Carson. At best, he could hope to be surgeon general.
Of course, it's also possible that a President Trump would end up excluding Carson, too. Or he could make Carson the secretary of health and human services. At least with Trump, Carson has a shot at power and relevance.
TRUMP GRABS FLORIDA BECAUSE RUBIO HAS FALLEN AND CAN'T SEEM TO GET UP:
HAVE ROMNEY & OTHER GOP ESTABLISHMENT LEADERS RUINED RUBIO'S POLITICAL FUTURE?
Sources: Washington Post, Youtube
After listening to GOP establishment leaders and strategists who advised him to pummel 2016 presidential Frontrunner DONALD TRUMP with silly insults, it now appears as if Trump's challenger U.S. Senator MARCO RUBIO has taken a nosedive.
Rubio's plan to destroy Trump with insults has backfired terribly and made him appear like a desperate career politician willing to do anything to win.
It's no doubt Rubio is finished on the 2016 presidential campaign trail but what about his future political endeavors?
Many people predict that Rubio won't even be able to carry his home state during the Florida Primary on March 15.
So is Rubio finished and destined to return to the private sector?
Marco Rubio had suffered three electoral thumpings in a row when the senator from Florida and his image-makers abruptly shifted strategy. The aspirational candidate, whose presidential campaign was built on a promise of generational change and Republican unity, would morph overnight into Donald Trump’s chief assailant.
Rubio launched what he and his team felt was an imperative assault on the front-runner at the Houston debate on Feb. 25.
The next morning at a Dallas rally, he mocked Trump mercilessly. Rubio whipped out his iPhone and, with boyish glee, read aloud the billionaire mogul’s misspelled tweets. He made fun of Trump’s makeup and “sweat mustache,” and suggested the mogul had wet his pants.
For the next three days, Rubio’s crude schoolyard taunts continued: over Trump’s made-in-China suits, his “horrible spray tan” and his small hands — a quip that, as Trump would later explain on the debate stage in Detroit, implied something else was small, too.
Rubio's benefactors were aghast to see their candidate practicing Trump’s gutter politics. “Everyone went, ‘What?. . . Why are you going down to that level?’ ” recalled one fundraiser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly. “You might as well support Trump.”
Looking back, Rubio’s supporters see these fateful days as central to his unraveling.
A strategy designed to get under Trump’s skin and force him on the defensive instead backfired on Rubio, diminishing the 44-year-old senator who had spent years trying to demonstrate presidential gravitas. At rally after rally, Rubio was unintentionally personifying the caricature that Trump was perpetually drawing of him: “Little Marco.”
The results were not pretty. Rubio lost 18 of the next 20 contests, with his only wins in Minnesota’s caucuses and Puerto Rico’s primary. The ultimate humiliation came on Tuesday, when Rubio performed so poorly in four states — he got just 5 percent in Mississippi — that he was shut out from gaining any delegates.
A reflective Rubio expressed regret Wednesday over his name-calling of Trump, saying at an MSNBC town hall that the insults had upset his children.
“In terms of things that have to do with personal stuff, yeah, at the end of the day it’s not something I’m entirely proud of,” Rubio said. “My kids were embarrassed by it, and if I had to do it again, I wouldn’t.”
A cloud of fatalism
Rubio vowed to soldier on into next Tuesday’s must-win Florida primary. “I will campaign as long and as hard as it takes,” the senator, joined by wife, Jeanette, said at a Wednesday evening rally in Hialeah, a heavily Cuban American city outside of his Miami home town.
But a cloud of fatalism now hovers over his campaign. Aides on Wednesday tried to beat back rumors he would quit the race — perhaps before Thursday’s CNN debate in Miami. Donors exchanged grim messages about Rubio’s fate in Florida, where his campaign, short on cash, is running no advertisements. New polls showed him trailing Trump here badly.
Supporters in the small and subdued Hialeah crowd all but conceded defeat. “I’ve been around for a long time,” said Sal Pittelli, 70. “And you can smell the flop sweat.”
Meanwhile, rival Ted Cruz of Texas, campaigning in Miami, needled Rubio by arguing that his was the only “credible path” to deny Trump the nomination.
It's certainly a possibility that he could lose on Tuesday, and perhaps by double digits,” said John McKager “Mac” Stipanovich, a Tallahassee lobbyist and Rubio supporter. “He’s sworn to win, which might take some divine intervention, but that’s what he’s said, and he’s trying to persuade the people who love him and follow him that that’s the case.”
There was evidence of some Rubio enthusiasm in South Florida. Blue “Florida Is Marco Rubio Country” signs adorn many lawns and busy intersections, and the campaign has secured valuable airtime on Radio Mambi, an AM station that is popular among the region’s Cuban Americans. Rubio aides host 15-minute segments each morning.
Adam Hasner, Rubio’s Florida campaign co-chairman, dismissed the suggestion that Rubio might drop out before the primary. He noted that Rubio plans to attend a series of Florida fundraisers on Friday and would campaign hard across the state.
“He has demonstrated that he has a message that resonates and he’s the right messenger,” Hasner said. “He’s come so far in six years, to leave it a couple of yards from the goal line and taking a knee on third down? It’s just not who Marco Rubio is.”
Rubio’s major donors are descending on Miami for a finance retreat. They will be joined for lunch Thursdayby New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, an endorser, and by Rubio at breakfast Friday.
Rubio’s backers on Capitol Hill tried to show a united front of optimism amid the negative chatter.
“I hope Marco wins. I know he’s working really hard. I’m with him on this,” said Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.). But she declined to address next steps if Rubio does not win Florida. “We’re positive,” she said. “I think he’s the guy, going to keep supporting him. We’ll find out next week.”
Other Rubio associates were downright despondent. They were reticent to speak openly because they did not want to damage their friend’s prospects, but one confessed privately, “I don’t see how this campaign continues.”
Miami locals who know Rubio and his family and have supported his campaigns over the years said they blame Rubio’s advisers for improperly managing what seemed to them only a few weeks ago like a sure thing.
“Up until he started talking about how Trump has a small penis, it was brilliant,” said the same friend, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly. “Focusing on the size of his hands or the color of his skin — that was stupid.”
‘Pretty much finished’
There are a multitude of reasons to account for Rubio’s collapse: He is a career politician in a season when GOP primary voters crave outsiders; he was the subject of tens of millions of dollars in negative advertising from former Florida governor Jeb Bush’s super PAC; he could not raise enough money to keep up his own ad blitz; his ground game was weak; and his Senate work seeking comprehensive immigration reform constituted apostasy to many conservatives.
Yet another reason is that Rubio has no natural base. In the sprawling field, he was never the most experienced establishment-friendly candidate (that was Bush), nor the most conservative ideological warrior (Cruz), nor the rebellious outsider (Trump).
“Beyond the appeal of his personal story, I’m not sure Marco ever grew a constituency that would carry him to the finish line,” said Stipanovich, who initially supported Bush.
Interviews with more than a dozen Rubio advisers, fundraisers and other supporters suggest that perhaps the key inflection point came in that late-February change of strategy on Trump, when Rubio sacrificed the uplifting message that had won over late-deciding voters in Iowa and South Carolina for an all-out brawl.
was when private pollsters tracking the race began to see Rubio’s favorability rating and his standing in the horse race stall out and soon erode.
Consider Kansas, where one private poll showed Cruz, Rubio and Trump in a virtual tie a week before the caucuses there. Rubio lunged for the win: He trumpeted the endorsements of Gov. Sam Brownback and Sen. Pat Roberts, as well as the revered former Senate leader Robert J. Dole, and campaigned hard there for a full day. But in last Saturday’s voting, Rubio ended up a distant third with 16.7 percent; Cruz won with nearly half of the vote.
Rubio found himself locked in a downward spiral. He kept arguing on the stump that he was the most electable candidate and could unite all factions of the Republican Party. Yet electable candidates are expected to win — and Rubio was mostly losing.
“Those exchanges with Mr. Trump were damaging,” Al Cardenas, a conservative activist who is a Bush friend and a former Rubio employer, wrote in an email. “Perhaps not as damaging as the dismal results in Kansas, Maine and Louisiana. If you finish under 20 percent in the South, Midwest and Northeast, this far out in the campaign, you are pretty much finished.”
‘It was a conscious decision’
Rubio’s pivot to Trump was by all accounts deliberate and carefully planned. With the exception of his debate meltdown in New Hampshire — when he was mocked for robotically repeating talking points — Rubio had a strong early February, slowly gaining momentum, money and high-wattage endorsements. Once Trump beat him and Cruz in South Carolina and Nevada, however, Rubio’s supporters agitated for him to take a more aggressive stance or risk letting Trump run away with the nomination.
Randy Kendrick, an influential conservative donor, said she and her husband, owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks, encouraged Rubio to go on the offensive, “defining Trump.”
“Stand up for what we believe in,” she said. “If we lose, okay. But he will be able to say, ‘We did the right thing.’ ”
As the Houston debate approached, the senior leadership of Rubio’s campaign decided to go after Trump. They fed the candidate a mountain of opposition research about Trump’s business dealings and past liberal positions. Senior adviser Todd Harris, who runs Rubio’s debate preparation sessions, helped him develop specific lines of attack that would serve Trump some of his own medicine.
“Rubio felt he needed to point out some of Trump’s massive inconsistencies — and to try to do it with a little bit of humor,” said one Republican with knowledge of the preparations, who requested anonymity to speak candidly. “It was a conscious decision.”
In the post-debate spin room, Rubio’s team boasted that their candidate had finally found Trump’s Kryptonite.
“Donald Trump has always been effective at picking up someone’s perceived weakness, and really exploiting it,” campaign manager Terry Sullivan told reporters. “Well, guess what? Marco has Donald’s number. And it’s that this is a joke.”
Harris told reporters that Rubio had proved he could “mix it up” by mocking Trump. “Was it a substantive argument? No,” he admitted. “But as we’ve seen from most of, if not all of, the media coverage over the past eight months, trying to wage a battle of substance against Trump is a pretty futile effort.”
At that point, Harris described the petty attacks as a tactic, not a new strategy. “We’re not going to go chase all of these little temporary narratives, temporary media trends, and whatever seems to be trending on Twitter,” he said. “The overwhelming majority of Marco’s stump speech is positive, and that’s not going to change.”
Not 12 hours later, Rubio’s stump speech had changed — dramatically. At a rally in downtown Dallas, Rubio spent close to eight minutes taking potshots at Trump, even as his audience’s titters turned to nervous unease.
“First [Trump] had this little makeup thing applying, like, makeup around his mustache because he had one of those sweat mustaches,” Rubio said. “Then, then he asked for a full-length mirror. . . . He wanted a full-length mirror, maybe to make sure his pants weren’t wet — I don’t know.”
The speech was carried live on cable news. Donors swamped Rubio and his advisers with messages urging him to abandon the insult-fest. Eventually, after he lost 10 of 11 states on Super Tuesday, Rubio dropped the line of attack.
In the days that followed, Rubio insisted his swipes at Trump did not define his candidacy. Trump is a bully, he said, and bullies must be stood up to. Then at Wednesday’s MSNBC town hall, Rubio not only voiced regret, but also blamed the insult-spewing front-runner for setting a juvenile tone for the entire race.
“I don’t want to be that,” Rubio said. “If that’s what it takes to become president of the United States, then I don’t want to be president.”
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