Why GOP Voters Should Listen Very Carefully To What Ted Cruz Said About Trump When He Spoke From The Heart

The man in the video above, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, endorsed Herr Trumpf for president Friday. The clip was shot during a press gathering in Indiana where Trump was in the process of winning every single Indiana delegate and closing down Cruz's narrow path to victory. (The final score was Trump 590,460 to Cruz 406,380 and next door neighbor John Kasich 83,913.) Cruz eked out wins in 5 northeast counties to Trump's 87. While Indianans were still casting their ballots, Cruz said "I'm going to tell you what I really think of Donald Trump" for the very first time since the campaign began. I wonder if he studied psychology in college. "This man is a pathological liar. He doesn't know the difference between truth and lies. He lies... practically every word that comes out of his mouth. And he hit a pattern that I think is straight out of a psychology text book: his response is to accuse everybody else of lying. He accuses everybody on that debate stage of lying and it's simply a mindless yell. Whatever he does, he accuses everyone else of doing. The man cannot tell the truth-- but he combines it with being a narcissist, a narcissist at a level I don't think this country has ever seen... Everything in Donald's world is about Donald... The man is utterly amoral. Morality does not exist for him... Donald is a bully... Every one of us knew bullies in elementary school. Bullies don't come from strength; bullies come from weakness. Bullies come from a deep, yawning cavern of insecurity. There is a reason Donald builds giant buildings and puts his name on them everywhere he goes... He is lying to his supporters." And yesterday he urged his fellow Texans and fellow Americans to vote for that man for president of the United States. OK, then.

But there was another endorsement Friday that was more telling than Cruz's sad surrender. The last time the militantly conservative Cincinnati Enquirer endorsed a Democrat was in 1916 when Supreme Court Justice Charles Hughes was the Republican candidate and they backed incumbent Woodrow Wilson. Arguably, Wilson would have lost without the endorsement, since he lost every upper Midwestern state-- Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa-- but Ohio and the 24 electoral votes that gave him his 277-254 electoral college margin of victory. Had Hughes won Ohio the count would have been 278 (Hughes) to 253 (Wilson). Wilson won Ohio with 51.86% of the state's vote.

The Enquirer endorsement yesterday makes it clear they're not big Hillary enthusiasts, but are afraid of what a Trump presidency would mean for America. They accused him of having "exploited and expanded our internal divisions" and of bringing out the worst in people.

Trump is a clear and present danger to our country. He has no history of governance that should engender any confidence from voters. Trump has no foreign policy experience, and the fact that he doesn't recognize it-- instead insisting that, "I know more about ISIS than the generals do"-- is even more troubling. His wild threats to blow Iranian ships out of the water if they make rude gestures at U.S. ships is just the type of reckless, cowboy diplomacy Americans should fear from a Trump presidency. Clinton has been criticized as being hawkish but has shown a measured approach to the world's problems. Do we really want someone in charge of our military and nuclear codes who has an impulse control problem? The fact that so many top military and national security officials are not supporting Trump speaks volumes.

...[O]ur reservations about Clinton pale in comparison to our fears about Trump.

This editorial board has been consistent in its criticism of his policies and temperament beginning with the Republican primary. We've condemned his childish insults; offensive remarks to women, Hispanics and African-Americans; and the way he has played on many Americans' fears and prejudices to further himself politically. Trump brands himself as an outsider untainted by special interests, but we see a man utterly corrupted by self-interest. His narcissistic bid for the presidency is more about making himself great than America. Trump tears our country and many of its people down with his words so that he can build himself up. What else are we left to believe about a man who tells the American public that he alone can fix what ails us?

While Clinton has been relentlessly challenged about her honesty, Trump was the primary propagator of arguably the biggest lie of the past eight years: that Obama wasn't born in the United States. Trump has played fast and loose with the support of white supremacist groups. He has praised some of our country's most dangerous enemies-- see Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un and Saddam Hussein-- while insulting a sitting president, our military generals, a Gold Star family and prisoners of war like Sen. John McCain. Of late, Trump has toned down his divisive rhetoric, sticking to carefully constructed scripts and teleprompters. But going two weeks without saying something misogynistic, racist or xenophobic is hardly a qualification for the most important job in the world. Why should anyone believe that a Trump presidency would look markedly different from his offensive, erratic, stance-shifting presidential campaign?

Some believe Trump's business acumen would make him the better choice to move America's slow recovery into a full stride. It’s true that he has created jobs, but he also has sent many overseas and left a trail of unpaid contractors in his wake. His refusal to release his tax returns draws into question both Trump’s true income and whether he is paying his fair share of taxes. Even if you consider Trump a successful businessman, running a government is not the same as being the CEO of a company. The United States cannot file bankruptcy to avoid paying its debts.

Trump’s rise through a crowded Republican primary field as well as Sanders' impressive challenge on the Democratic side make clear that the American people yearn for a change in our current state of politics. However, our country needs to seek thoughtful change, not just change for the sake of change. Four years is plenty of time to do enough damage that it could take America years to recover from, if at all.

In these uncertain times, America needs a brave leader, not bravado. Real solutions, not paper-thin promises. A clear eye toward the future, not a cynical appeal to the good old days.

Hillary Clinton has her faults, certainly, but she has spent a lifetime working to improve the lives of Americans both inside and outside of Washington. It's time to elect the first female U.S. president-- not because she's a woman, but because she's hands-down the most qualified choice.

Last night another major Ohio newspaper, the Akron Beacon Journal, a reliably Democratic newspaper, founded in 1839, also came out swinging against Trump and, unabashedly for Hillary. Blue collar northeast Ohio is exactly where Trump thinks he can appeal to working class white voters. Kasich beat him in the 5 counties where the Beacon Journal is most read: Summit, Portage, Stark, Wayne and Medina. Trump averaged around 35% in those 5 counties, similar to how he fared statewide. Trump did best in the poorest Appalachian part of the state in the east and south, his best Ohio counties being Trumbull, Mahoning, Jefferson, Harrison, Belmont and Monroe, all bordering on western Pennsylvania and northern West Virginia. The Beacon Journal editors offered Trump no quarter: "[I]n assessing the dangerous candidacy of Donald Trump," they wrote, "it is essential, especially in this swing state of Ohio, to weigh the accumulation, all the outrages, lies and revelations that have gathered since he jumped into the race. They form the portrait of a Republican nominee unfit to serve as president. This editorial page has examined many candidacies at all levels over the years. None is quite like Trump in its disqualifying traits, from his ill-suited temperament to his aggressive lack of knowledge and preparation. With so much at stake, the debates approaching and Election Day just six weeks away, it is important to discuss how his candidacy falls severely short."

Start at the beginning of his political rise, when he noisily took the lead in the “birther” movement, making the outlandish claim that President Obama may not have been born in this country. That cannot be dismissed as easily as Trump aimed to do last week, not when he waged a five-year campaign, seeking to portray the first black president as somehow illegitimate or undeserving.

This was racially tinged, and it has echoed elsewhere in his candidacy, spreading divisiveness, whether in sweeping comments about Muslims or denigrating a federal judge because of his “Mexican heritage.”

Many politicians exaggerate, fudge the truth, even tell whoppers. Few do so in such a serial and brazen fashion, as the independent fact-checkers have confirmed. Recall Trump seeking to link Ted Cruz’s father to the assassination of John Kennedy. Or insisting that he opposed the war in Iraq and the Libyan intervention when the record clearly shows otherwise. Or that he watched “thousands” of Muslims cheer when the World Trade Center collapsed.

This unrestrained neglect of the truth surfaces in the myth about the businessman. If Trump has made big money, he also has left a trail of wreckage, most notably, exploiting bankruptcies and stiffing contractors, often small businesses. No wonder Michael Bloomberg declared: “Trump says he wants to run the nation like he’s run his business. God help us!”

Trump University carries the stench of fraud. The Washington Post has exposed the shady doings of the Trump Foundation, its violation of campaign finance law, phantom donations and self-dealing, using, for instance, foundation money to settle lawsuits involving for-profit businesses of Trump.

The candidate easily could address questions about his finances by releasing his tax returns (as other presidential candidates have going back to 1980) and detailing his extensive business relationships. This lack of transparency, or disdain for voters, alone disqualifies him from the presidency.

Yet even more disturbing are the repeated indications of how little Trump knows about conducting the presidency and the complex terrain he would have to navigate. Take just one emblematic moment, his claim, often made, that in Iraq, the smart move would have been to “take the oil.” Imagine the backlash, in the expense of lives and dollars, carrying out the mission, or the reaction in Iraq and the rest of the Arab world, all of it confirming the darkest suspicions about American intent.

Add that in repeating this view Trump shows an intellectual laziness, confirmed by how little he has done to get up to speed in policymaking, or what a president does. If he has proved rash, demagogic, self-aggrandizing and thin-skinned, he also celebrates the value of being unpredictable. What happened to the Republican priority of “certainty”?

Trump has appeared the dupe of Vladimir Putin and an unwitting recruiter for the Islamic State.

All of this helps explain why 50 former national security officials in Republican administrations stated that Trump “would be the most reckless president in American history.” The Wall Street Journal reports that no living member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, Democratic or Republican, supports Trump.

Many in Akron, Ohio and across the country have been battered by a changing economy and feel they have been pushed aside by the political class. They have a case, and many see Donald Trump sending a powerful message. He does talk tough. He boasts and blusters. He is a skilled pitchman who has built a global brand. Yet begin to look closely and fully, and his candidacy unravels, revealing a man unworthy of the office he seeks.

The most recent poll in Ohio, by Democratic-leaning Democracy Corps shows Trump ahead, 41-39% and with momentum. If only Schumer hadn't interfered in the Senate primary and torpedoed P.G. Sittenfeld in favor of a walking corpse who not even the DSCC is bothering to support! Sittenfeld would be making Ohio's Senate race at least competitive and would be helping gin up excitement for Clinton in the state. If Hillary loses in Ohio, Florida and Iowa, much of the blame should fall on Schumer for his sick ideology that he-- and only he-- knows better than local Democratic primary voters.


UPDATE: NY Times Weighs In

This morning the NYTimes endorsed Hillary, respectfully if not enthusiastically. They saved their enthusiasm for a short, effective bashing of Trump. They pointed out that a comparison of the positions and platforms of the two candidates would be pointless this year because Hillary "has a record of service and a raft of pragmatic ideas, and the other, Donald Trump, discloses nothing concrete about himself or his plans while promising the moon and offering the stars on layaway."

They titillate their readers by promising a subsequent editorial that will explain how they came to the conclusion that Trump is "the worst nominee put forward by a major party in modern American history" while asserting that "the best case for Hillary Clinton cannot be, and is not, that she isn’t Donald Trump."

The Times' review of it's endorsements from 1860 on is interesting. It starts with Abraham Lincoln-- "we shall have honesty and manliness instead of meanness and corruption in the Executive departments, and a decent regard for the opinions of mankind in the tone and talk of the Government on the subject of Slavery"-- and meanders through a bipartisan list of presidents including Grant (R), Hayes (R), Garfield (R), and Cleveland (D)-- three times-- to serial party switcher John Palmer (ended his career a Blue Dog) who opposed both populist Democrat William Jennings Bryan and establishment Republican William McKinley and ended up, despite the Times endorsement with barely 1% of the vote. His top 3 states were New Hampshire (4.21%), Florida (3.82%) and Alabama (3.28%) and had no impact on the ultimate results of any state. In New York he drew 1.33% compared to McKinley's 57.58% and Bryan's 38.72%. That wasn't the last time The Times made a weird choice. They picked Alton Parker over Teddy Roosevelt in 1904 and Wendell Wilkie over FDR in 1940. Starting in 1960 with JFK, they've always endorsed Democrats, including McGovern in 1972.