Trump Is No April Fool's Joke

Because Trump's not part of the GOP crackpot Band, he's not politically correct within the finely attenuated right-wing circles where everyone knows you're never supposed to say out loud what he clumsily stumbled into it, that of course women would go to prison for getting an abortion in Republican-world. Even Mike Huckabee, who's been hoping some crumbs would fall his way from a Trump administration, was on Morning Joe admitting that Trump "handled that poorly… It was a terrible answer. Nobody is going to defend what he said." Nobody is right!

Ken Blackwell, senior fellow at the Family Research Council, said Trump's comments underscored the candidate's "lack of any in-depth of involvement with the pro-life movement."

"We have always considered the baby and mother as victims in abortion," Blackwell said. "He (Trump) has been all over the map on issues of principle. He has established a pattern that is indicative of his inexperience."

...Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Trump's main rival for the GOP nomination, said in a statement that "Once again Donald Trump has demonstrated that he hasn’t seriously thought through the issues, and he’ll say anything just to get attention."

Poor dumbbell! And that ABC/Washington Post poll yesterday was just devastating. In a general election situation, no one likes him, not even white males. If it winds up being Trump v Hillary, it will be the two most hated candidates ever running a race all about who is the lesser-of-two-evils and who is less hated by the American people. As disliked as Clinton is, Trump is hated by far more people and she can probably beat him and make America miserable for 4 years. More than ever: BERNIE!

Greg Sargent ran this chart yesterday showing where Trump's vulnerabilities lie-- and basically it was everyone, not just with Democratic-leaning groups but with all groups. Democrats hate him, independents hate him, even most Republicans hate him!

These numbers are simply amazing. Trump is viewed unfavorably by at least 80 percent of some of the groups that Republican strategists had hoped the GOP might improve among: young voters and Latinos. He’s viewed unfavorably by three out of four moderates. That GOP autopsy into what went wrong in 2012 has been torn to shreds and scattered to the winds from the top of Trump Tower.

Just as bad, this new polling further undercuts the already weak case for an implausible Trump victory: the idea that he can win by making surprise inroads in relatively white states in the industrial Midwest, thus riding a wave of working class white anger into the White House. Trump is viewed unfavorably by a narrow majority of non-college whites (52 percent).

What’s more, these new numbers also suggest other complications to Trump’s working-class-white strategy that we’ve discussed before: Trump seems uniquely positioned to alienate white women and white college graduates to an untold degree. This renders the working-class-white strategy’s math even more far fetched.

In our polling, Trump is viewed unfavorably by 68 percent of white women and 74 percent of white college graduates. If a lot of white women view Trump unfavorably, that would complicate his chances of over-performing among working class whites. And if Trump under-performs among college educated whites (and alienates nonwhites to an untold degree), he might need truly enormous margins among working class whites (who, as noted above, already view Trump unfavorably) to make up the difference.

Can Trump win by driving up tremendous, great, terrific, and huge margins among white men? Well, even they view Trump unfavorably, by 51-47.

My favorite Trump post though-- the one that came closest to exposing his essence-- was the HuffPo sendup by Jennifer Bendery, Sam Stein and Dana Liebelson, Donald Trump Made Up Stuff 71 Times In An Hour-- And that’s counting the commercial breaks. It's not possible to grok the Trump experience without first understanding that he says anything at all regardless of reality, let alone veracity. He is a self-referential liar. If he says it, in his universe, it must be true... because he said it. "On Wednesday," the three of them wrote, "the Huffington Post assigned five and a half reporters to look into a roughly 12,000-word transcript of Trump’s town hall event on CNN the night before. It took us hours, but in all, we found 71 separate instances in which Trump made a claim that was either inaccurate, misleading or deeply questionable. That’s basically one falsehood every 169 words (counting the words uttered by moderator Anderson Cooper), or 1.16 falsehoods every minute (the town hall lasted an hour, including commercial breaks)." Examples:

• Claim: The security camera footage of the Lewandowski incident “exonerates him totally.”

Reality: It does not. It actually shows Lewandowski lied about his initial assertion that he didn’t know or remember Fields at all.

• Claim: “I’m a loyal person.”-- Trump on his decision to stand by Lewandowski.

Reality: Trump is famous for the phrase, “You’re fired.” His marital history also conflicts with this.

• Claim: “She had a pen in her hand, which could have been a knife, it could have been just a pen, which is very dangerous.”-- Trump on Fields.

Reality: Pens are carried all the time by reporters and are widely acknowledged as not being very dangerous.

• Claim: “She wasn’t dragged to the ground.”-- Trump on Fields.

Reality: Trump implies here that Fields said she was dragged to the ground. She never did.

She said, “I almost fell to the ground, but was able to maintain my balance,” which is what the video shows.

• Claim: “Nobody respects our president.”

Reality: This is false in the U.S. and abroad.

• Claim: “I thought it was a nice picture of Heidi.” — Trump on a picture of Ted Cruz’s wife, Heidi Cruz, contrasted with his wife, Melania, that he re-tweeted.

Reality: There is no way to dip into Trump’s brain. But it’s fair to say that he didn’t think it was a kind or nice picture of her.

• Claim: “He sent out a picture”-- Trump, stating that Cruz was responsible for spreading a photo of Melania Trump posing nude for GQ.

Reality: Cruz didn’t send out the picture. An anti-Trump super PAC sent it out.

• Claim: “I was against the war in Iraq. OK.”

Reality: Trump spoke supportively of the invasion in 2002.

• Claim: “We have no idea who they are, we have no idea where is their paperwork. They have no paperwork; they have no identification.”-- Trump on Syrian refugees.

Reality: Syrian refugees are the most heavily vetted group coming to the U.S. The process takes a year and a half to two years.

• Claim: “They had bombs on the floor. Many people saw this. Many, many people.”-- Trump on the San Bernardino shooters.

Reality: A couple neighbors of one shooter’s mother, in a different town, noticed packages being delivered. Nobody saw bombs.

• Claim: “I started off with a very, very small amount of money.”

Reality: His father gave him a $1 million loan, which is objectively not a small amount of money.

• Claim: “No, I don’t really think so.”-- Responding to a question about whether he solicits donations on his website.

Reality: There is a donate button on his website.

• Claim: “We’re spending a tremendous-- billions and billions of dollars on NATO.”

Reality: Actually, America’s direct spending on NATO is about $500 million annually.

• Claim: “I’m a very honest guy.”

Reality: Here is a list of numerous false statements made by Trump compiled by PolitiFact.

I know Trump says he doesn't have a SuperPAC so the million dollars in ads running in New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland and this one running all over Wisconsin by Great America PAC aren't really real. You're just imagining it:



Republican Party, Inc plans to protect itself from this by stealing the nomination from Trump at the convention and giving it to Reluctant Ryan. Yesterday, a well-connected right-wing website, Washington Examiner, reported that the RNC had created a website in an attempt to legitimize the theft of Trump's nomination and the Ryan coronation, ConventionFacts.GOP. The Examiner explained that "[t]his year, the Cleveland convention could turn into a floor battle for GOP delegates between front-runner Donald Trump, the New York billionaire; Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas; Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, and possibly a dark horse candidate. Unfamiliarity with the process has led to wild speculation about the rules governing the process and rumors that party leaders might work to 'steal' the nomination from Republican primary voters. Priebus has spent considerable time trying to explain that any contested convention would run according to long-established rules. This new website is another part of that effort. Winning the nomination requires winning the vote 1,237 delegates in a vote on the convention floor. Most delegates are bound on the first ballot to the candidate that won the primary in their home state, after which they become free agents."

Trump will sue. Or maybe worse.