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Tom DeLay: 'We Have to Stop Trump… Whatever It Takes'
Wednesday, March 9, 2016 05:15 PM
By: Bill Hoffmann
Short of relying on dirty tricks, the Republican Party must do absolutely everything in its power to prevent Donald Trump from clinching the GOP presidential nomination, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay tells Newsmax TV.
"We have got to stop Trump. Whatever it takes without cheating or violating the rules of the Republican primaries," DeLay said Wednesday on "The Steve Malzberg Show."
"We've got to stop Trump and it's going to take everybody on board to do that."
DeLay, a Texas Republican, said he was encouraged that former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who dropped out of the race last month, has summoned Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich — but not Trump — to brainstorm on the state of the campaign.
"[But] I wish he'd invited some of the other [former] candidates like [Ben] Carson and Carly Fiorina. All these candidates that ran and know Trump the best," he said.
Asked whether Kasich and Rubio, who trail both Trump and Cruz, should end their campaigns, DeLay, a Washington Times radio host, told Malzberg:
"I would urge that they really take a hard look. If they know that they can win Florida and Ohio, then I think they should stay in…. We need those two states against Trump, but if they can't win or they don't think they can win, then they need to get out and they need to get out today."
DeLay said if Trump does win the nomination, a lot of Christian conservatives will stay away from the polls in the general election.
"Trump's not a conservative. If you look at every issue he talks about, he has no conservative policy," he said.
DeLay was asked whether he agrees with conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh that if the Republican establishment wants to beat Trump, it must rally behind the second-place Cruz.
"First of all, I'd like to know what the definition of 'establishment' is. To Trump, establishment's everybody that's against him. I don't know who Rush is talking to. I guess he's saying the 60 percent of the voters in the Republican primary that are not voting for Trump are the establishment," DeLay said.
"I can tell you as one of the voters that voted for Cruz, there are a lot of good, strong conservatives that understand Trump's not a conservative and are rallying around Cruz.
There's two ways to go here: one way is for Rubio and Kasich to stay in and try to deny Trump enough votes a majority to get the nomination.
"The other way is for them to get out. But if they get out, they need to get out right now so that Cruz will have an opportunity to compete in the primaries Monday. We're right now starting the winner-take-all states. There's still 500 delegates by proportion but we're now winner-take-all states.
DeLay said a candidate who captures 35 percent of the votes gets all of the delegates.
"Stupid Republican rules, but that's the way it is," he said. "There's 870 delegates out there and we need to rally around Cruz in order to start winning some of those states and deny Trump the nomination."
