Daily Archives: February 5, 2020

WASHINGTONAs the beginning of primary season upped the stakes in their search for an alternative candidate, Democratic National Committee officials reportedly mulled Monday asking Donald Trump to run for president as a Democrat in an effort to stop Bernie Sanders. Hes obviously not our first choice, but Trump has a track record of winning elections, not to mention he does well with the conservative voters well need to swing some red states blueif thats who we need to ask to ensure Bernie doesnt win, well do it, said DNC chairman Tom Perez, who had circled Trumps name on a white board lising dozens of potential candidates the party could try to convince to jump into the Democratic Party primaries in order to obstruct a Sanders nomination. This late in the game, we need somebody with name recognition and a built-in following, which Trump definitely has. He has political experience working with Republicans, which will help him win over moderate voters who are turned off by the idea of a socialist president. Plus, hell have the backing of the Democratic donor base, who generally prefer him to Sanders. Look, sometimes politics makes strange bedfellows, but I think I speak for party leadership when I say that wed much rather see Donald Trump than Bernie Sanders as the Democratic nominee. At press time, Perez was in negotiations to ensure Trump was on every Democratic primary ballot for Super Tuesday and changing the requirements to allow Trump to qualify for the next Democratic debate.

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DNC Mulls Asking Donald Trump To Run As Democrat In Effort To Stop Sanders - The Onion

The libertarian-minded Massie has broken with Trump on an array of key issues, which McMurtry has highlighted repeatedly since launching his campaign earlier this month. But Massies new commercial aims to turn the tables on McMurtry, who is branding himself as a staunch Trump ally in lockstep with the president ahead of the May 19 primary.

Hes even worse than a Never Trumper. Todd McMurtry is a Trump hater, says the ad, which opens with a photograph of Massie and Trump flashing grins and thumbs-ups.

Massies commercial then highlights a handful of critical comments McMurtry made about Trump on Facebook, mostly in 2017, the first year of Trump's presidency.

Sad but true. Trump is the epitome of a weak male, said one McMurtry post, read in classic attack-ad fashion by the narrator.

Trump is an idiot, says another.

Hillary is right, McMurtry writes in another comment. He is temperamentally unqualified to be president.

Massies commercial concludes by tying his primary opponent to Hillary Clinton: Siding with Crooked Hillary. Thats Todd McMurtry, the Trump hater.

The race in Kentuckys deeply conservative 4th Congressional District, which spans the northernmost part of the state, underscores how GOP primaries are becoming litmus tests for fealty to Trump. Republican contests in areas from the Philadelphia suburbs to Fort Worth, Texas, are hinging on a simple factor: whether an incumbent House Republican has been sufficiently supportive of the president.

The significance of this test became clear during the 2018 primary season. Former Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) lost reelection to a challenger who highlighted his denunciations of the president. Two other Trump critics, Sens. Jeff Flake of Arizona and Bob Corker of Tennessee, retired rather than face primary challenges from Trump-aligned opponents when their poll numbers sagged after blowups with Trump.

That has led a small group of Republicans, which now includes Massie, to go to great and unusual lengths to dissuade the president from endorsing a primary opponent. Alabama Rep. Martha Roby withdrew her support for Trump after the release of the lewd Access Hollywood tape just prior to the 2016 election, prompting a furious response from local Republicans. So once Trump took office, Roby became a frequent visitor at the White House in hopes of smoothing over her relationship with the president. At the time, Roby was trying to fend off a primary threat from a pro-Trump opponent. She won reelection in 2018 but is retiring in 2020.

Massies ad cuts into the main point of his opponents campaign. McMurtry, one of the attorneys who represented Covington Catholic student Nicholas Sandmann in his defamation lawsuit against several media outlets, has pointed out that Massies voting record is less aligned with Trump less than any other member of the Kentucky congressional delegation, saying that Trump cant rely on our congressmans support.

Running in a district that Trump won by more than 35 percentage points, McMurtry has vowed there will be no daylight between him and the president. Earlier this month, he tweeted out a picture of the Trump Hotel in Washington.

Hoping to see my favorite President, McMurtry wrote.

Its not the first time a candidate has bought advertising time in South Florida hoping to get the presidents attention. Shortly after launching his Democratic presidential campaign last fall, former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg ran TV commercials in the area, coinciding with the presidents holiday travel to Mar-a-Lago.

And Massies campaign is making no secret of its intended audience.

We know the president will be in Florida this weekend, and we want him to know that our primary opponent has not been a supporter of his, said Massie campaign manager Jonathan Van Norman.

The Massie campaign is spending around $3,000 to air the commercial during Fox News programs this weekend in the West Palm Beach area, including Fox News Sunday. The spot is expected to air more than 50 times on Fox News over a 36-hour period.

The campaign will also spend $13,000 to run the ad on Fox News in Kentucky from Feb. 1 through Feb. 10.

The McMurtry campaign responded to the ad by pointing to several pieces of legislation and recent votes on which Massie broke with Trump, including a resolution aimed at curtailing the presidents ability to wage war with Iran.

Every time President Trump needs him, Massie stabs him in the back, McMurty campaign manager Jake Monssen said. It would be great if Thomas Massies problem was limited to old Facebook posts. Its not. His problem is his anti-Trump voting record in the House.

While Trump has endorsed several House Republicans who are trying to fight off primaries, aides to the president say he is unlikely to intervene in the Kentucky contest either for or against Massie. While they acknowledge Massie has sometimes opposed the president, they also note that he voted against impeachment in the House.

That has not kept Massie, who is facing the most serious reelection threat of his congressional career, from pursuing a presidential endorsement. Van Norman said the reelection campaign had been seeking Trumps support.

Certainly, Van Norman said, Congressman Massie would welcome an endorsement from President Trump in his race.

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The extreme measure one House Republican is taking to win over Donald Trump - POLITICO

A freshly installed section of President Trumps virtually impenetrable U.S. border wall got blown over by high winds on Wednesday, according to several reports, with local Mexicali officials scrambling to divert traffic.

Agent Carlos Pitones of the Customs and Border Protection sector told CNN that the sections that gave way had recently been set in a new concrete foundation in Calexico, California and that the concrete had not yet cured.

Heres some footage from the Guardian:

This comes a few months after Trump visited the wall near where this section fell and said, This wall is not something that can be really knocked down. Earlier this week, just one day before the gusty winds took their toll, Trump told a crowd in New Jersey that the wall was going up at record speed.

Of course, rivals and critics were quick to pounce, including presidential hopeful Tom Steyer, who used Trumps own words to lampoon him:

They were getting a kick out of it overseas, as well:

Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported the Trump administrations planning to move another $7.2 billion from the military to wall construction.

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I build the best product! A section of Donald Trumps border wall gets blown over and his critics are loving it - MarketWatch