Republican friendships shatter over Trump

[AllThatJazzZ]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Py66shufl0

The candidate of cultural degeneracy.

I both pity and have disdain for anyone who can defend Trump's explanation in this video. THIS MAN IS NOT RIGHT IN THE HEAD! How is it possible to miss that???!?!??

@Cripplecreek

[musiclady]

I both pity and have disdain for anyone who can defend Trump's explanation in this video. THIS MAN IS NOT RIGHT IN THE HEAD! How is it possible to miss that???!?!??

@Cripplecreek

That's the question of the ages, @AllThatJazzZ .   How can anyone miss that he is a cracked, messed up excuse for a human being?

[Cripplecreek]

I both pity and have disdain for anyone who can defend Trump's explanation in this video. THIS MAN IS NOT RIGHT IN THE HEAD! How is it possible to miss that???!?!??

@Cripplecreek

And let's not forget, that video was the day after he said it and before he returned to it after the convention.

And now I see Trumpers are declaring that Trump has "solved" the birther issue by discovering it came out of the Clinton camp. Here is Ted Cruz setting Katie Couric straight on it more than a year ago.


www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-2qdi2_HqM

[geronl]

@Smokin Joe  The facts about Cruz's dirty campaign tactics speak for themselves and no amount of twisting and turning from your side is gonna change them.

Trump had the dirtiest campaign of anyone in history

[jmyrlefuller]

A world where the actions and behavior of your cult hero may only be measured in relation to the actions and behavior of Trump and not against an ethical standard... yes I agree.

But notice which side keeps dragging Trump into a debate on Ted Cruz's ethics.

This was never supposed to be about Ted Cruz's ethics.

Go back to the original title. The subject of the article is Donald J. Trump. You are the ones dragging the conversation off topic.

Gee, why does this sound familiar? Oh, yeah, because you guys pulled this garbage during the primaries, too.

[HoustonSam]

@HoustonSam What I can't figure out is why you folks don't own the reality that Cruz ran a down and dirty campaign from start to finish.

Because @Longmire it isn't reality.  Cruz's campaign certainly was not perfect, but he focused on issues rather than people until his family was attacked, he worked to maintain party unity by not insulting others in the party and acting toward them graciously when others dropped out, and he accepted accountability and apologized or fired people when his campaign did something wrong.

A down and dirty campaign is one where the candidate insults the face of one competitor and says that another is as pathological as a child molester, announces that he's donating a million dollars to veterans as a reason to skip a debate but then makes no donation until the media exposes that he has failed to do so, and lies about another rival in addition to attacking his wife and father.

You pro-Trump people have a legitimate case that we pro-Cruz types continue to attack Trump.  It's because you insult our intelligence by maintaining that Trump has the slightest shred of respectability, credibility, or intelligence, and by continuing your jihad against Cruz when he hasn't even been in the race for months.  If you think Trump is better than Hillary then more power to you in voting for him, but don't expect us to sit silently when we hear, or read, sermons about Trump's virtue or capabilities and continued attacks on Cruz for faults both real and imaginary.  On the other hand if you simply argue that you feel that Trump is better than Hillary in spite of his faults and you leave Cruz out of it, as a few others do here, you'll get no fight from me.

[Smokin Joe]

I both pity and have disdain for anyone who can defend Trump's explanation in this video. THIS MAN IS NOT RIGHT IN THE HEAD! How is it possible to miss that???!?!??

@Cripplecreek

If one of your kids made those eye movements and not just blinks, but closings while telling you that story, would you believe them?

[XenaLee]

I both pity and have disdain for anyone who can defend Trump's explanation in this video. THIS MAN IS NOT RIGHT IN THE HEAD! How is it possible to miss that???!?!??

@Cripplecreek

Wolf is wasting his time in that interview.  Having a higher standard of behavior simply does not compute with Trump.  He can't get next to it.  He's been that way his whole life and since a teenager (as proven by the fact that his parents had to ship him off to military boarding school because not even they could 'handle him')...and it's the only way he knows how to behave even now, as an adult.

[Smokin Joe]

Wolf is wasting his time in that interview.  Having a higher standard of behavior simply does not compute with Trump.  He can't get next to it.  He's been that way his whole life and since a teenager (as proven by the fact that his parents had to ship him off to military boarding school because not even they could 'handle him')...and it's the only way he knows how to behave even now, as an adult.

I'm glad someone else caught that. Poor kids went to 'reform school', rich kids went to either Private Prep schools, and if they got kicked out, to "Military Boarding Schools". Not all the kids in the Prep Schools nor the Military Boarding Schools were there because they were jerks, by any metric, but those were the popular places where a significant donation could smooth over a student's official record, and they could be kept cloistered to keep from being inconvenient or embarrassments to the family.

[Longmire]

This was never supposed to be about Ted Cruz's ethics.

Go back to the original title. The subject of the article is Donald J. Trump. You are the ones dragging the conversation off topic.

Gee, why does this sound familiar? Oh, yeah, because you guys pulled this garbage during the primaries, too.

You're hallucinating if you think I brought Ted Cruz into this conversation.

I got involved when @skeeter tried to equate dirty campaigning by Cruz with cheating.

Go back and look if you don't believe me. 

[Longmire]

Trump had the dirtiest campaign of anyone in history

[Longmire]

I both pity and have disdain for anyone who can defend Trump's explanation in this video.

Trump's explanation that Cruz's father attacked him first is valid.

In fact Rafael Cruz had been engaging in escalating rhetoric against Trump and his supporters for months.

I'll also note that Cruz dropped out the day after Trump made mention of the Miami Herald article about his father.

As a kill shot it was pretty effective .

[skeeter]

You're hallucinating if you think I brought Ted Cruz into this conversation.

I got involved when @skeeter tried to equate dirty campaigning by Cruz with cheating.

Go back and look if you don't believe me. 

I looked. Unfortunately your attempted rationalization hasn't gotten any less sad and nonsensical.

[beandog]

Trump's explanation that Cruz's father attacked him first is valid.

In fact Rafael Cruz had been engaging in escalating rhetoric against Trump and his supporters for months.

I'll also note that Cruz dropped out the day after Trump made mention of the Miami Herald article about his father.

As a kill shot it was pretty effective .

Had Sen. Cruz had the lack of ethics that the Donald has, he would have returned fire against the parent with the real shady background, tRump's good old Dad.  He was a slum lord and  had to pay fines for refusing to rent to minorities.  He wouldn't even have had to make stuff up, like the Donald did.

[beandog]

There was no dirty campaigning by Cruz and he knows it.  Carson's campaign staff put out a stupid statement that led the media to speculate that he was withdrawing from the race.  Team Cruz was top notch and on top of the cutting edge reporting.  Instead of taking responsibility for their own mistake, team Carson sought to gain advantage by blaming Cruz.  Team Trump jumped on it for the same reason

But the truth does not matter to those people.  They will get exactly what they deserve in Trump.

I actually believe that Carson was getting ready to drop out at that point.  I think after the news got out the Donald gave Carson a buzz on the phone and convinced him to stay in to make Cruz look bad.  I believe that's how Carson got the funds to continue on for as long as he did.  Notice how Carson and the Donald are all buddy buddy now, even though tRump said some really horrible things about him. 

[skeeter]

I actually believe that Carson was getting ready to drop out at that point.  I think after the news got out the Donald gave Carson a buzz on the phone and convinced him to stay in to make Cruz look bad.  I believe that's how Carson got the funds to continue on for as long as he did.  Notice how Carson and the Donald are all buddy buddy now, even though tRump said some really horrible things about him.

I smelled a setup between Carson and Trump at the debate immediately following the caucus, when Carson refused to approach his podium when called and instead hid backstage - I believe intending to make some point embarrassing Cruz about his rumored dropping out of the race.

I was reminded of this when @Longmire helpfully posted on page 13 of this thread a picture of Carson and Trump taken at that moment.

I don't think their little stunt played very well because no one could figure out what the hell was going on. But it did appear to me at the time there was some kind of collusion between the two.

[Longmire]

A down and dirty campaign is one where the candidate insults the face of one competitor and says that another is as pathological as a child molester, announces that he's donating a million dollars to veterans as a reason to skip a debate but then makes no donation until the media exposes that he has failed to do so, and lies about another rival in addition to attacking his wife and father.

@HoustonSam

No, what you've described is a rude and offensive campaign but not a dirty one. Trump typically didn't start the attacks but would quickly respond to/escalate  them, and Trump wasn't attacking from behind a smoke screen of deniability either. He attacked openly and publicly and owned every one of his actions.

OTOH Cruz tried to maintain some kind of ethical high ground while his campaign was playing dirty left and right. This shouldn't really come as a surprise to anyone since his main campaign operative was Jeff Roe who had a well deserved reputation for playing dirty. Cruz never fired Roe although he threw his communications director under the bus for tweeting some inaccurate information about Rubio. Cruz also denied responsibility for numerous other dirty tactics, from sleazy robo calls in SC, to drop out emails in Hawaii.

[XenaLee]

I smelled a setup between Carson and Trump at the debate immediately following the caucus, when Carson refused to approach his podium when called and instead hid backstage - I believe intending to make some point embarrassing Cruz about his rumored dropping out of the race.

I was reminded of this when @Longmire helpfully posted on page 13 of this thread a picture of Carson and Trump taken at that moment.

I don't think their little stunt played very well because no one could figure out what the hell was going on. But it did appear to me at the time there was some kind of collusion between the two.

Good catch!  That never even occurred to me....but now that you mention it....

[Longmire]

I looked. Unfortunately your attempted rationalization hasn't gotten any less sad and nonsensical.

Rationalization is not a tenant of your Cruz cult worship...I get that. 

[skeeter]

Rationalization is not a tenant of your Cruz cult worship...I get that. 

Nor do I expect it could be found on any street or facade, or under any rock, within your PoTrumpkin village.

[sinkspur]

@HoustonSam

No, what you've described is a rude and offensive campaign but not a dirty one. Trump typically didn't start the attacks but would quickly respond to/escalate  them, and Trump wasn't attacking from behind a smoke screen of deniability either. He attacked openly and publicly and owned every one of his actions.

OTOH Cruz tried to maintain some kind of ethical high ground while his campaign was playing dirty left and right. This shouldn't really come as a surprise to anyone since his main campaign operative was Jeff Roe who had a well deserved reputation for playing dirty. Cruz never fired Roe although he threw his communications director under the bus for tweeting some inaccurate information about Rubio. Cruz also denied responsibility for numerous other dirty tactics, from sleazy robo calls in SC, to drop out emails in Hawaii.

LOL!  Trump sheepishly tried to deny he was mocking reporter Serge Kovaleski (and his throne sniffer Coulter has made it a jihad of hers to deny the obvious). 

He denied he made statements to Howard Stern proving he supported the Iraq War when he was saying he didn't.

Trump's usual MO is blaming someone else for getting caught with his pants down.  That's what he did with Cruz's father ("Many people are saying").

Donald Trump does not take ownership of his actions. 

[HoustonSam]

@HoustonSam

Trump typically didn't start the attacks but would quickly respond to/escalate  them, and Trump wasn't attacking from behind a smoke screen of deniability either. He attacked openly and publicly and owned every one of his actions.

@Longmire

How did Carly Fiorina attack Trump before he insulted her face?
How did Ben Carson attack Trump before he compared Carson to a child molester?
How did Cruz attack Trump before Trump sent insulting tweets about Cruz's wife?  And remember, photos of Melania had been used previously on magazine covers with no objection from the Trumps, and it's been well documented that the Cruz campaign had no role in using those photos for campaign purposes.
Is it your position that Trump acknowledged publicly and owned that he was not donating one million dollars to veterans causes after his "rally"?  What role did the media play in exposing that failure, and when did Trump finally make the donations?

OTOH Cruz tried to maintain some kind of ethical high ground while his campaign was playing dirty left and right. This shouldn't really come as a surprise to anyone since his main campaign operative was Jeff Roe who had a well deserved reputation for playing dirty. Cruz never fired Roe although he threw his communications director under the bus for tweeting some inaccurate information about Rubio. Cruz also denied responsibility for numerous other dirty tactics, from sleazy robo calls in SC, to drop out emails in Hawaii.

So is it your position that Cruz would have been more ethical to keep Rick Tyler on his staff after Tyler issued the false information about Rubio?  Or is it simply that Cruz is accountable for everything done by his staff?  If the latter then Trump is obviously accountable for the incident between Corey Lewandowski and Michelle Fields, and clearly Trump just "threw him under the bus."

Did you understand what I said about insulting people's intelligence?  "It's not really lies and slander because he admitted to saying it" is an absurd position.

There is a fair case to make that Trump is preferable to Hillary.  Anti-Cruz nonsense doesn't make that case, in fact it detracts from it.  How many votes do you think you're gaining for Trump by continuing to argue against Cruz and Cruz supporters?

[Smokin Joe]

@HoustonSam

No, what you've described is a rude and offensive campaign but not a dirty one. Trump typically didn't start the attacks but would quickly respond to/escalate  them, and Trump wasn't attacking from behind a smoke screen of deniability either. He attacked openly and publicly and owned every one of his actions.

OTOH Cruz tried to maintain some kind of ethical high ground while his campaign was playing dirty left and right. This shouldn't really come as a surprise to anyone since his main campaign operative was Jeff Roe who had a well deserved reputation for playing dirty. Cruz never fired Roe although he threw his communications director under the bus for tweeting some inaccurate information about Rubio. Cruz also denied responsibility for numerous other dirty tactics, from sleazy robo calls in SC, to drop out emails in Hawaii.

Trump didn't start the attacks? "Lyin' Ted" isn't exactly a term of affection.

Manafort was no saint, either. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/01/us/paul-manafort-ukraine-donald-trump.html?_r=0

[AllThatJazzZ]

NOTICE TO TRUMPSTERS READING OR POSTING TO THIS THREAD: CRUZ IS NOT THE REPUBLICAN NOMINEE. YOU NEED TO COME TO TERMS WITH THAT AND QUIT OBSESSING ABOUT HIM.

[geronl]

NOTICE TO TRUMPSTERS READING OR POSTING TO THIS THREAD: CRUZ IS NOT THE REPUBLICAN NOMINEE. YOU NEED TO COME TO TERMS WITH THAT AND QUIT OBSESSING ABOUT HIM.