A resource for journalists and for shutting down your crazy uncle.
Donald Trump’s rhetorical style is straight out of middle school. He’s like an eighth-grade girl.
The CNN Republican debate in Houston, Texas devolved into a shouting match of children at one point. This happens at every debate prior but this was by far the worst display of immaturity by all candidates.
Please, someone, after watching the clip below I want you to make a case for the whiner, the robot, or the fascist, or any of them as looking presidential.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-idUSMTZSAPEC2P3ODAT9
Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump elaborated on a cryptic warning he issued to the Ricketts family in February, suggesting he would take ads out saying they’re doing a “rotten job” with the Chicago Cubs.
“I’ll start doing ads about their baseball team. That it’s not properly run or that they haven’t done a good job in the brokerage business lately,” Trump said in an interview with the Washington Post editorial board.
Asked if he would launch those attack ads as the president, Trump responded, “No, not while I am president.”
In February, Trump via Twitter denounced a super political action committee opposing his campaign that is primarily funded by Marlene Ricketts, whose family owns the Cubs.
I hear the Rickets family, who own the Chicago Cubs, are secretly spending $'s against me. They better be careful, they have a lot to hide!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 22, 2016
Asked by the Post what he meant, Trump first said, “I don’t know these people. Those Ricketts.”
“I actually said they ought to focus on the Chicago Cubs and, you know, stop playing around. They spent millions of dollars fighting me in Florida,” Trump said.
“I’ll start spending on them. I’ll start taking ads telling them all what a rotten job they’re doing with the Chicago Cubs. I mean, they are spending on me. I mean, so am I allowed to say that?”
Trump’s initial Twitter post apparently was in response to a story noting that Ricketts, the family matriarch who lives in Nebraska, had put $3 million into the Our Principles PAC in January. The PAC had spent about $3.5 million in ads, mailings and other efforts to oppose Trump, federal records showed in February.
Asked to respond to Trump’s latest comments, a spokesman for the family referred to team Chairman Tom Ricketts’ response last month.
“We stand up for what we believe in,” Ricketts said then. “We support the causes we think are important. That is what America should be.”
Marlene Ricketts is married to Joe Ricketts, the billionaire T.D. Ameritrade founder. In October 2009, the couple formed a trust on behalf of their family that acquired a 95 percent controlling interest in the Cubs and Wrigley Field. Both Marlene and Joe Ricketts are conservatives, and son Pete is governor of Nebraska.
(h/t Chicago Tribune)
It is very concerned when a candidate who is running for the President of the United States of America is willing to throw his weight at people who oppose him politically. Todd Ricketts summed it up best, “It’s a little surreal when Donald Trump threatens your mom.”
While Trump said he’s ready to criticize the family over how the Cubs are run, the team made it to the National League championship series last year and is considered by many as a World Series contender this year.
Forbes magazine valued the Cubs at $1.8 billion in 2015, ranking them 17th out of all sports franchises in the world, and the fifth highest in all Major League Baseball. The Cubs attendance for the 2015 regular season was 2,959,812, up over 300,000 from the previous year.
As of June, the Chicago Cubs are 1st place in National League Central.
Not the definition of “rotten.”
Presidential candidate Donald Trump easily won the Republican Nevada primary with over 44% of the votes in early counting, in a election marked by complaints of fraud and chaos. He made a victory speech in front of a rowdy crowd dressed in “Make America Great Again” hats and t-shirts at his Las Vegas hotel, and expressed his love for everyone from casino mogul Steve Wynn to the “poorly educated.” He also offered up some more information about his plans should he be elected president, including keeping the Guantanamo Bay detention facility open and loading it up with “bad dudes.”
Quartz has transcribed his entire victory speech. You can also view it here (speech starts at the 1:49:22 mark).
We won with young. We won with old. We won with highly educated. We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated. We’re the smartest people, we’re the most loyal people, and you know what I’m happy about? Because I’ve been saying it for a long time. 46% were the Hispanics—46%, No. 1 one with Hispanics. I’m really happy about that.
Trump literally called a bunch of his supporters stupid.
http://qz.com/623640/i-love-the-poorly-educated-read-donald-trumps-full-nevada-victory-speech/
A group of immigration hecklers took on presidential candidate Donald Trump during a campaign event in New Hampshire.
Trump was taking questions at the historic Exeter Town Hall building in Exeter, where his supporters were packed in like sardines. Also in the mosh pit, it turned out, were a few opponents of the candidates’ position on immigration.
One young woman began asking the Republican candidate for president a question by identifying herself as being from Southern California.
“What are you doing here?” Trump asked. “Are you a liberal Democrat, by any chance?”
After the woman mentioned that immigrants “do the work that nobody else wants to do and for a lot less,” the real estate tycoon asked, “Who told you to be here? Bernie [Sanders]?”
“This is a Bernie plant,” Trump said, referring to Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. “This is a Bernie plant.”
Another audience member then yelled out that immigrants living in the country illegally are the “backbone of this country.” In response Trump heckled back:
Illegal immigrants are the backbone of our country? I don’t think so, darling. You know what the backbone of our country is? People that came here, and they came here legally … and they worked their asses off and they made the country great.
Fox News Channel accused Donald Trump of asking the network for a $5 million donation as a “quid pro quo” in return for Trump’s promise to appear in Thursday night’s Republican debate, as an extraordinary feud between the right’s best-known media platform and the Republican party’s presidential front-runner overshadowed the last debate before the Iowa caucuses.
“Roger Ailes had three brief conversations with Donald Trump today about possibly appearing at the debate – there were not multiple calls placed by Ailes to Trump.
In the course of those conversations, we acknowledged his concerns about a satirical observation we made in order to quell the attacks on Megyn Kelly, and prevent her from being smeared any further.
Furthermore, Trump offered to appear at the debate upon the condition that Fox News contribute $5 million to his charities. We explained that was not possible and we could not engage in a quid pro quo, nor could any money change hands for any reason.
We have accomplished those two goals and we are pleased with the outcome. We’re very proud to have her on stage as a debate moderator alongside Bret Baier & Chris Wallace.”
(h/t Chicago Tribune)
By shaking down Fox News for $5 million dollars in order to appear at their debate Donald Trump just committed a crime.
It’s also ironic that Trump refused to attend the debate by accusing Megyn Kelly of having a conflict of interest.
If you read the news, Donald Trump’s boycott of the Fox News/Google debate is the result of his ongoing war with anchor Megyn Kelly.
Trump, however, says that’s not true. He says a biting Fox News release is why he pulled the plug.
“Well, I’m not a person that respects Megyn Kelly very much. I think she’s highly overrated. Other than that, I don’t care,” he told CNN an hour before the debate. “I never once asked that she be removed. I don’t care about her being removed. What I didn’t like was that public relations statement where they were sort of taunting. I didn’t think it was appropriate. I didn’t think it was nice.”
(h/t Politifact)
Donald Trump many times publicly demanded removal of Megyn Kelly as a moderator as a condition to attend the Fox News debate in Iowa.
Full video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMSfucArxVo
A single day after he had said he wouldn’t refer to Kelly as a “bimbo,” a term used to insult women, because doing so would “not be politically correct” Donald Trump tweeted the following:
"@gene70: @FireFlyFury @megynkelly @realDonaldTrump And this is the bimbo that's asking presidential questions? pic.twitter.com/oU1uUGnuWb"
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 28, 2016
Megyn Kelly is many things, “journalist”, political hack, cover-girl, but as critical we are of her a bimbo she is not. As a lawyer she’s argued cases in front of the United States Court of Appeals, wrote articles for the American Bar Association‘s journal, and (when convenient for her) knows her way around the Constitution.
Usually politicians have some time between they flip-flop to afford them a bit of a buffer. Apparently Trump couldn’t go 24 hours without reverting to his sexist ways.
Also… this.
Fox News host Bill O’Reilly told Donald Trump that he’s making a “big mistake” by skipping Thursday’s GOP debate. But Trump is not budging.
O’Reilly pleaded with Trump to reconsider, even invoking Trump’s Christian faith and the tenet of forgiveness to say that Trump should forgive Megyn Kelly for tough questioning.
Trump responded by bringing up the “eye for an eye” principle.
The GOP frontrunner is planning to hold a “special event” to raise money for veterans at the same time Fox hosts the final primary debate before Monday’s Iowa caucuses.
“We’re going to have a tremendous event,” Trump said, adding that “a lot of money is going to be raised.”
O’Reilly seemed to be lobbying Trump on behalf of the network, even going so far as to say that “I don’t think not showing up for debate tomorrow is good for America.”
At the end of the conversation, he asked Trump to reconsider the 24-hour-old boycott.
“Consider it,” the host said.
Trump shot back that “you and I had an agreement that you wouldn’t ask me that.”
And he declined to reconsider. Then he plugged his 9 p.m. fund-raising event at Drake University.
He criticized Kelly on Fox just an hour before Kelly’s own show. “I have zero respect for Megyn Kelly,” Trump said. “I don’t think she is very good at what she does. I think she is highly overrated.”
O’Reilly did little to defend Kelly.
For days Trump has been calling Kelly “biased” and claiming she shouldn’t be allowed to moderate the debate. On Tuesday, after he taunted Kelly in an Instagram video and polled his Twitter followers about whether he should skip the debate, Fox fired off a statement that dripped with mockery.
He emphasized to Fox’s Bill O’Reilly that it was ultimately the network’s disrespectful statements that led to his decision:
“I was not treated well by Fox. They came out with this ridiculous P.R. statement, it was like drawn up by a child. And there was a taunt. And I said, you know, “How much of this do you take?” I have zero respect for Megyn Kelly. I don’t think she’s very good at what she does. I think she’s highly overrated. And, frankly, she’s the moderator, I thought her question last time was ridiculous.”
(h/t CNN)
The evidence has mounted and it is clear that Trump is avoiding Megyn Kelly. If it is out of fear or spite, doesn’t matter they are both unpresidential.
http://video.foxnews.com/v/4725365820001
The O’Reilly Factor Transcript
Fox News has issued a statement responding to Donald Trump‘s conduct on social media, calling The Donald out for his timidity with what can only be described as trolling of the highest order.
Trump has said that he might not attend Fox News’s GOP Iowa debate because, he says, co-moderator Megyn Kelly isn’t “fair” to him. He took his grievances to Twitter and Instagram Tuesday afternoon, asking fans, “Should I do the GOP debate?”
Fox News responded in a statement given to Mediaite, saying:
We learned from a secret back channel that the Ayatollah and Putin both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president — a nefarious source tells us that Trump has his own secret plan to replace the Cabinet with his Twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings.
In a similar statement released Monday, a Fox News spokesperson said the network was “surprised he’s willing to show that much fear about being questioned by Megyn Kelly,” and suggesting that one day, the presidential candidate would have to learn that he doesn’t get to pick which journalists cover him.
Donald Trump tweeted his response later that afternoon, calling Fox News’s statement a “pathetic attempt” to build ratings:
Pathetic attempt by @foxnews to try and build up ratings for the #GOPDebate. Without me they'd have no ratings! https://t.co/2bx54VKpQh
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 26, 2016
(h/t Mediaite)
Trump has had an issue with Kelly since she moderated a Republican presidential debate in August. He accused her of being unfairly harsh on him by asking him valid questions about past sexist and misogynist comments. Fox News is standing by its anchor, calling the attacks on her “sexist verbal assaults.”
Donald Trump on Tuesday bowed out of the final Republican presidential debate before the leadoff Iowa caucuses, saying Fox News moderator Megyn Kelly is “a lightweight.”
It was the childishly written & taunting PR statement by Fox that made me not do the debate, more so than lightweight reporter, @megynkelly.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 27, 2016
With 48 hours to go before the faceoff, campaign manager Corey Lewandowski confirmed Trump’s decision Tuesday evening after a press conference in which Trump lashed out at Kelly and said she’d been “toying” with him.
“He will not be participating in the Fox News debate Thursday,” Lewandowski said immediately after the press conference.
Trump, who called his decision “pretty close to irrevocable” in the press conference, said he’d hold an Iowa event at the same time as the debate to raise money for wounded veterans. Iowa hosts the nation’s opening presidential primary contest on Monday.
“With me, they’re dealing with somebody that’s a little bit different. They can’t toy with me like they toy with everybody else,” he said. “Let them have their debate and let’s see how they do with the ratings.”
He added, “Why do I have to make Fox rich?”
Trump denied that he was afraid to debate, pointing out his participation and past performance, and reiterated his distaste for Kelly.
“This to me isn’t a reporter. This to me is just a lightweight. Megyn Kelly shouldn’t be in the debate. I don’t care about Megyn — when Megyn Kelly didn’t ask me a question, she made a statement last time, I thought it was inappropriate.”
On Tuesday night’s airing of her Fox News show, “The Kelly File,” Kelly said she’ll be at the debate, which will “go on with or without Mr. Trump.”
The Republican National Committee said the decision was up to Trump.
“Obviously we would love all of the candidates to participate, but each campaign ultimately makes their own decision what’s in their best interest,” said RNC chief strategist Sean Spicer.
Trump had suggested he might skip the Fox debate earlier in the day, drawing a sarcastic statement from the television network that “the Ayatollah and Putin both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president.”
“A nefarious source tells us that Trump has his own secret plan to replace the Cabinet with his Twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings,” the Fox statement said.
A Fox spokesman did not immediately respond to Trump’s decision.
The New York real estate mogul’s presence has helped produce massive ratings in the previous six Republican presidential debates. His decision leaves seven candidates to share the primetime stage Thursday: Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul.
“Let them have their debate. I’m going to raise money during that period of time for the wounded warriors and for the vets. Let Fox play its games,” Trump said.
He added, “I don’t think Iowa’s gonna care.”
At the very least, the high-profile debate feud serves as a major distraction in the Republican contest just six days before Iowa voters cast the first votes in the 2016 primary contest.
Trump, now locked in a tight race with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, has proven to be a master of commanding media attention at key moments. Among other things, he has called for a temporary ban on all Muslim immigrants and later questioned Cruz’s presidential eligibility given that he was born in Canada.
The provocative declarations have often left little oxygen in the race for his opponents.
(h/t Yahoo News)
By skipping the debate Trump lost Iowa to Ted Cruz.
Trump has had an issue with Kelly since she moderated a Republican presidential debate in August. He accused her of being unfairly harsh on him by asking him valid questions about past sexist and misogynist comments. Fox News is standing by its anchor, with a statement calling the attacks on her “sexist verbal assaults.”
Fox, responded with another statement emphasizing Trump’s agenda against Kelly and alleging that Lewandowski had personally threatened the anchor:
“We’re not sure how Iowans are going to feel about him walking away from them at the last minute, but it should be clear to the American public by now that this is rooted in one thing – Megyn Kelly, whom he has viciously attacked since August and has now spent four days demanding be removed from the debate stage.”
It is important to note that in 2012 when Michelle Bachmann skipped a debate hosted by Newsmax, someone had some choice critical words for her:
Michele Bachmann just dropped out of prez race— when she didn't do the Newsmax debate it showed great disloyalty and people rejected her.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2012
I was on a tele-townhall with @TeamBachmann and hosted her 4 times in Trump Tower yet she declined the Newsmax-@iontv debate. No loyalty.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 12, 2011