Conservative Blogger
Thursday, May 19, 2016
Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg meets with conservatives on reported bias
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| Matt Schlapp: I refused to be Facebook's PR pawn |
The meeting at Facebook's Menlo Park, California, headquarters came about after a report accused the company of harboring a bias against conservative views.
S.E. Cupp, a columnist with the New York Daily News who attended the meeting, said Facebook executives "were very clear to acknowledge that there is a problem and the problem is a serious one."
Cupp said Zuckerberg, Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, Vice President Joel Kaplan and board member Peter Thiel mostly listened to the 17 conservatives who attended.
While the Facebook executives did not comment further on an internal investigation into allegations of political manipulation, they explained how difficult it would be for Facebook employees to inject bias into what stories make it into the "trending topics" section of the site or on individual users' news feeds, Cupp said.
The Facebook team also said any such tampering would be "philosophically against both the mission of the company and Mark's personal mission," Cupp said. "I believed them."
Rob Bluey, editor in chief of the website The Daily Signal, made similar comments to Fox News' Greta Van Susteren shortly after the meeting ended.
"They certainly acknowledged that there was a problem with getting the message out to conservatives," he said.
Facebook spokesman Andy Stone confirmed that was the tenor of the meeting.
In a Facebook post afterward, Zuckerberg did not directly respond to allegations that Facebook employees suppressed conservative stories on its "trending topics" feature. But he said, "I know many conservatives don't trust that our platform surfaces content without a political bias."
"I wanted to hear their concerns personally and have an open conversation about how we can build trust. I want to do everything I can to make sure our teams uphold the integrity of our products," he wrote.
Among others in attendance, according to Facebook, was radio host Glenn Beck, American Enterprise Institute President Arthur Brooks, Tea Party Patriots CEO Jenny Beth Martin and Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center.
Bozell said in a statement afterward that the meeting was "very productive."
"There has been a serious issue of trust within the conservative movement about this issue, but everyone in that room, on both sides, wants to see it restored," he said.
Zuckerberg invited the group after the tech blog Gizmodo claimed that Facebook downplays conservative news subjects on its trending feature. Facebook denied the report, which relied upon a single anonymous individual with self-described conservative leanings. The company said it is investigating the matter.
Cupp said the viewpoints of the conservatives and the Facebook executives were aligned on issues such as data security, privacy, deregulation and free markets.
"We have a lot more in common than public perception would have you believe," she said.
Facebook's trending topics are most visible on the desktop version of the social network, although it is possible to access them on mobile too.
On browsers, the topics appear on the top right corner, separate from the news feed containing updates from your friends and family. On mobile devices, users can tap on the search bar to see the top trends, but they can't see separate categories.
Topics that appear as trending can have a self-fulfilling effect, as more Facebook readers see and share the items, and other news organizations decide to write their own stories.
Fox News Poll: Trump tops Clinton
Donald Trump tops Hillary Clinton in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup, according to a new Fox News Poll that also finds majorities of voters feel both frontrunners lack strong moral values and will say anything to get elected.
Trump has a 45-42 percent edge over Clinton, if the presidential election were held today. That’s within the poll’s margin of sampling error. Last month, Clinton was up by 48-41 percent (April 2016).
Clinton is ahead by 14 points among women (50-36 percent). Yet Trump leads by a larger 22 points among men (55-33 percent).
He also tops Clinton by 37 points (61-24 percent) among whites without a college degree (working-class whites).
CLICK HERE TO READ THE POLL RESULTS
Overall, Trump is preferred by 24 points among whites (55-31 percent). He’s even ahead by nine among white women (47-38 percent).
The latest headlines on the 2016 elections from the biggest name in politics. See Latest Coverage →
The poll includes an oversample of additional interviews among Hispanics/Latinos nationally. Watch for more on those results Friday on FoxNewsLatino.com.
In 2012, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney won by 20 points among whites, while President Barack Obama won blacks by 87 points and Hispanics by 44, according to the Fox News exit poll.
One reason for Trump’s showing is there is parity on party unity, as 83 percent of Democrats back Clinton and 82 percent of Republicans support Trump.
Independents go for Trump by 46-30 percent, although one in five would vote for someone else or stay home (20 percent).
Enthusiasm is on the GOP’s side, as more Republicans (74 percent) than Democrats (66 percent) say they are extremely or very interested in the presidential election.
The poll shows Bernie Sanders has a 46-42 percent advantage over Trump in a hypothetical matchup. Sanders was up by 53-39 percent in April. However, the Vermont senator trails Clinton in the Democratic nomination race by what is considered an insurmountable number of delegates.
The drawn-out nomination battle may hurt Clinton among the base, as 1 in 10 Sanders voters say they would pick Trump over her in November (11 percent).
Candidate Characteristics
Clinton and Trump have made quite an impression so far. Overall, voters feel the candidates lack honesty, empathy, and strong moral values, and that they’ll say anything to win.
Clinton has a net negative honesty rating of -35 points. That’s because a new low 31 percent say she’s honest, while a record 66 percent say she isn’t.
Trump does better on this measure, although he is still underwater by 17 points: 40 percent think he’s honest and 57 percent say he’s not.
In addition, over half say the phrase “has strong moral values” does not describe Clinton (57 percent) or Trump (58 percent).
Many think “cares about people like me” doesn’t fit Trump (55 percent).
More voters than not think the “cares” attribute doesn’t work for Clinton either (46 percent yes vs. 51 percent no).
Clinton performs best on “is a strong leader,” although the reviews are mixed: 49 percent say it applies to her, while 50 percent say it doesn’t.
“Strong leader” is also Trump’s best trait, as 59 percent feel it describes him (38 percent disagree).
Even so, half or better say “is a reliable leader” doesn’t describe Clinton (55 percent) or Trump (50 percent).
Most think Clinton (71 percent) and Trump (65 percent) will “say anything to get elected.” And majorities think the main reason the former secretary of state (57 percent) and businessman (56 percent) are running is for themselves -- rather than for the country.
Who is more corrupt? By a 49-37 percent margin, voters give that dubious distinction to Clinton.
Pollpourri
What about former Republican governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson, who is favored to top the Libertarian Party ticket? He ran in 2012 and received almost one percent of the vote nationally.
The poll finds Johnson garners 10 percent in this hypothetical three-way matchup. But that wouldn’t change the race, as Trump still holds the edge over Clinton: 42-39 percent.
The Fox News poll is based on landline and cellphone interviews with 1,021 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) from May 14-17, 2016. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points for all registered voters.
Trump refers to alleged Bill Clinton sexual indiscretions as 'rape'
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump used the word "rape" Wednesday evening to describe alleged sexual misconduct by former President Bill Clinton.
Trump made the comment during an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity. The real estate mogul was answering questions about an unflattering story published this past weekend by The New York Times involving his relationships with women when he turned his attention to Bill Clinton.
"By the way, you know, it's not like the worst things, OK," Trump said. "You look at what Clinton's gone through with all of the problems and all of the things that he's done."
Hannity went on to question whether the newspaper would interview women including Juanita Broaddrick, Paula Jones and Kathleen Willey. All three have accused Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct.
"In one case, it's about exposure. In another case, it's about groping and fondling and touching against a woman's will," Hannity said.
"And rape," Trump responded.
The latest headlines on the 2016 elections from the biggest name in politics. See Latest Coverage →
In response, Clinton campaign spokesman Nick Merrill said Trump was "doing what he does best, attacking when he feels wounded and dragging the American people through the mud for his own gain. If that’s the kind of campaign he wants to run that’s his choice."
Allegations of womanizing, extramarital affairs and abuse have trickled out over the course of Bill Clinton's political life, including what his campaign referred to as "bimbo eruptions" when he first ran for president in 1992.
More allegations of misbehavior emerged after investigators in 1997 started looking into Clinton's sexual encounters with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Clinton was impeached over the Lewinsky affair.
In 1998, he agreed to an $850,000 settlement with Jones, an Arkansas state worker, who had accused Clinton of exposing himself and making indecent propositions when Clinton was the state's governor. The settlement included no apology or admission of guilt.
Broaddrick, a nurse, in 1999 claimed she was raped by then-state Attorney General Clinton at a Little Rock hotel in 1978. Kathleen Willey, a White House volunteer, claimed Clinton fondled her when she met privately with him at the White House in 1993 to seek a job.
Clinton denied the allegations by Broaddrick and Willey.
Trump has made clear in recent weeks that he intends to make Bill Clinton's sexual history a key campaign issue, describing him at rallies and on social media as "the worst abuser of women in the history of politics" and labeling his wife an "enabler."
EgyptAir flight from Paris to Cairo crashes with 66 on board, officials say
An EgyptAir flight traveling to Cairo from Paris crashed early Thursday with 66 passengers and crew members on board, Egyptian aviation officials said.
Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail said it was too early to say whether a technical issue or a terror attack had cause the plane to crash. He told reporters at Cairo airport, “We cannot rule anything out.”
Flight 804, an Airbus A320, was lost from radar at 2:45 a.m. Cairo time (8:45 p.m. EDT) when it was flying at 37,000 feet 175 miles north of the Egyptian coast, the airline said.
Officials from Egypt's Civil Aviation ministry said the "possibility that the plane crashed has been confirmed," as the plane failed to land in any nearby airports.
Airbus confirmed in a statement the “loss of an EgyptAir A320.”
“Airbus regrets to confirm that an A320 operated by EgyptAir was lost at around 02:30 am (Egypt local time) today over the Mediterranean Sea,” the company said. “The aircraft was operating a scheduled service, Flight MS 804 from Paris, France to Cairo, Egypt … Our concerns go to all those affected.”
EgyptAir later confirmed that a signal had been picked up from the plane two hours after it disappeared from radar, thought to have been an emergency beacon.
Hours later, Egyptian military said in a statement they didn’t receive any distress calls from the plane. However, they didn’t specify whether they were confirming the initial report that no stress call was received when the plane vanished or when an emergency signal was supposedly received two hours later.
Egyptian military aircraft and navy ships were searching for debris from the plane, which was carrying 56 passengers, including one child and two babies, and 10 crew members. EgyptAir later confirmed the nationalities of those on board as including 15 French passengers, 30 Egyptians, one Briton, two Iraqis, one Kuwaiti, one Saudi, one Sudanese, one Chadian, one Portuguese, one Algerian and one Canadian.
Greece sent two aircraft to join the search and rescue operation: one C-130 and one early warning aircraft, officials at the Hellenic National Defense General Staff said. They said one frigate was also heading to the area, and helicopters are on standby on the southern island of Karpathos for potential rescue or recovery operations.
"We are not ruling out any hypothesis," French Prime Minister Manuel Valls told reporters Thursday. "We are trying to gather all the information available." Valls later told RTL radio France was "ready" to join the search operation if Egyptian authorities requested his country's assistance.
French president Francois Hollande spoke with Egyptian president Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi on the phone and agreed to "closely cooperate to establish as soon as possible the circumstances" in which the EgyptAir flight disappeared, according to a statement issued in Paris.
Airbus is aware of the disappearance, but "we have no official information at this stage of the certitude of an accident," the company's spokesman Jacques Rocca said.
The Airbus A320 is a widely used twin-engine, single-aisle plane that operates on short and medium-haul routes. Nearly 4,000 A320s are currently in use around the world. The versions EgyptAir operates are equipped to carry 145 passengers.
Britain's Daily Telegraph quoted a French security source as saying "We cannot rule out the possibility of a terrorist attack." Another French official told the paper, "We would be extremely surprised and concerned if there had been a security breach at [Paris'] Charles de Gaulle [airport] ... We believe that is highly unlikely."
France remains under a state of emergency after terror attacks by ISIS killed 130 people in November.
There was no immediate comment from the U.S. government about the crash.
The Associated Press reported that around 15 family members of passengers on board the missing flight had arrived at Cairo airport Thursday morning. Airport authorities brought doctors to the scene after several distressed family members collapsed.
The incident renewed security concerns months after a Russian passenger plane was blown out of the sky over the Sinai Peninsula. The Russian plane crashed in Sinai on Oct. 31, killing all 224 people on board. Moscow said it was brought down by an explosive device, and a local branch of the extremist Islamic State group (ISIS) has claimed responsibility for planting it.
In 1999, EgyptAir Flight 1990 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near the Massachusetts island of Nantucket, killing all 217 people aboard, U.S. investigators filed a final report that concluded its co-pilot switched off the autopilot and pointed the Boeing 767 downward. But Egyptian officials rejected the notion of suicide altogether, insisting some mechanical reason caused the crash.
In March, an EgyptAir plane was hijacked and diverted to Cyprus. A man who admitted to the hijacking and was described by Cypriot authorities as "psychologically unstable" is in custody.
Wednesday, May 18, 2016
Perino says she's ready for Facebook meeting on alleged content bias
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| Dana Perino prepares to meet with Facebook over media bias |
Perino is one of the leading conservative figures invited to meet Zuckerberg in the aftermath of a Gizmodo report that stories about conservative topics were prevented from appearing in Facebook’s trending module. Facebook has denied any political bias, saying there is “no evidence” of the alleged activity.
“I am looking forward to going tomorrow,” Perino told Martha MacCallum on “America’s Newsroom” Tuesday. “I will go in with an open mind and tell you what we talked about.”
Related: Facebook says there is 'no evidence' of anti-conservative bias on Trending Topics
Other conservatives invited to the meeting at Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., include TV host Glenn Beck, American Enterprise Institute President Arthur Brooks, political commentator and writer S.E. Cupp, Targeted Victory Co-founder Zac Moffatt and Donald Trump adviser Barry Bennett.
Perino, former White House press secretary for President George W. Bush, says that she will use the meeting to find out why conservative views feature more prominently on Twitter than Facebook.
She also hopes to discuss Silicon Valley's broader approach to conservative viewpoints. "To me, companies like Facebook and others out there, they really prize gender and racial diversity, they don't so much seem to like diversity of thought," she said. With Wednesday's meeting, however, Facebook appears to be taking the issue seriously, according to Perino. "Because, in their business model, it's not in their interests to not be inclusive," she said.
Related: Government requests for Facebook data on the rise, report says
Perino also noted that when Facebook decided to get into the news business, "it opened itself up" to the type of criticism it is receiving at the moment.
In a Facebook post that was updated Sunday, Glenn Beck described the meeting as a chance for Zuckerberg to prove the social network’s commitment to freedom of speech.
“The question that needs to be answered Wednesday is: Will Mark see this as an opportunity to free all points of view, but at the same time unify America and the world,” he wrote. “While they are a private business and I support their right to run it any way they desire without government interference, it would be wonderful if a tool like Facebook INDEPENDENTLY CHOSE to hold up freedom of speech and freedom of association as a corporate principle.”
Related: Reddit administrators accused of censorship
Citing a Facebook spokesman, Reuters reports that 12 “conservative thought leaders” will join Zuckerberg at the meeting.
Not every conservative figure invited to the Facebook meeting will attend. American Conservative Union Chairman Matt Schlapp declined the invitation. In a statement, Schlapp said that the "deck is stacked" against conservative opinion at Facebook, adding that CPAC content "egregiously underperforms" on Facebook compared to Twitter and other platforms by factors of 10.
The trending section, which appears to the right of the Facebook news feed, was introduced in January 2014. Facebook describes the module as a product “designed to surface interesting and relevant conversations in order to help you discover the best content from all across Facebook.”
Sanders wins Oregon primary, deadlocked with Clinton in Kentucky
Sen. Bernie Sanders won Oregon's Democratic presidential primary Tuesday night while front-runner Hillary Clinton appeared to have notched a narrow victory in Kentucky, a split decision preventing the former secretary of state from turning her full attention and resources to battling Donald Trump.
The outcomes do not dramatically change the Democratic delegate count and the former secretary of state remains on track to clinch the nomination on June 7 in the New Jersey primary. But Sanders' strong performances threaten to expose Clinton's weaknesses before she takes on Trump in the fall.
With 77 percent of precincts reporting in Oregon, Sanders led Clinton 54 percent to 46 percent, a difference of just over 43,000 votes.
“We just won Oregon, and we’re going to win California,” the Vermont senator told supporters in Carson, Calif., where he vowed to “take our fight” to July's Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.
Sanders' victory was his 21st of the election cycle and his 11th in the past 17 contests. The win also broke Sanders' streak of eight straight losses in so-called "closed primaries", where only registered Democrats can vote.
With 99 percent of the precincts reporting in Kentucky, Clinton led Sanders by just over 1,900 votes out of more than 423,000 that were cast. Though the race remained too close to call, the Clinton campaign claimed victory in the commonwealth late Tuesday.
The latest headlines on the 2016 elections from the biggest name in politics. See Latest Coverage →
According to an Associated Press tally, Clinton and Sanders each received 27 of Kentucky's 55 Democratic delegates, with one delegate to be awarded to the statewide winner. In Oregon, Sanders had won at least 28 of the Beaver State's 61 Democratic delegates, with Clinton winning at least 24 and nine other delegates outstanding.
Clinton currently has 2,291 pledged delegates and superdelegates to Sanders' 1,528. She requires a total of 2,383 to clinch the Democratic nomination.
Clinton repeatedly tried to turn the focus to Trump while campaigning in Kentucky over the weekend, calling the billionaire real estate mogul a "loose cannon" and saying she had "never heard such reckless, risky talk from somebody about to be a nominee for president than I’ve heard from Donald Trump when it comes to nuclear weapons."
For his part, Trump taunted Clinton on Twitter shortly after the polls closed in Kentucky Tuesday night.
In Oregon's Republican primary, Trump faced no active opposition in winning 67 percent of the vote. Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz received 17 and 16 percent of the vote respectively, as more than 104,000 ballots were cast for Trump's former rivals.
Trump won at least 17 of Oregon's 28 Republican delegates, with Cruz and Kasich each receiving at least three and five other delegates outstanding. Trump now has 1,160 delegates, just 77 away from the threshold needed to clinch the GOP nomination.
Deja Vu again? Trump critics still trying to block his nomination
Just as the rest of the world is focused on a
Donald/Hillary matchup, the #NeverTrump crowd is still hoping to somehow
derail him in Cleveland.
Isn’t it a little late for that? The Republicans running against Trump have all dropped out. This feels so last month.
I understand why those who believe Trump will lead the GOP to defeat, ruin the party’s brand or just don’t like the guy are still taking their whacks. But it seems like there’s an air of unreality around these last-ditch schemes.
And if they did succeed, of course, the hijacking of the nomination from a man who clobbered the competition and won more than 10 million votes in the primaries would totally rupture the party.
If Bill Kristol, the Weekly Standard editor, succeeds in launching an effort to mount a third-party conservative bid, it will, in my view, hand the election to Hillary Clinton. I know there’s this fantasy that no one gets to 270 and the contest winds up in the House, but that sounds more far-fetched than the notion that Trump wasn’t going to get to 1,237.
And it comes at a time when Trump has stunned the media establishment by pulling almost even in the polls. NBC has Clinton narrowly beating him, 48 to 45 percent, which is essentially a tie. Sure, May matchups don’t mean much, and a presidential campaign is all about the swing states. But those are eye-opening numbers for a non-politician with high negatives who is widely portrayed as polarizing.
Still, the Washington Post gave front-page display
yesterday to a story on Trump declaring that “grass-roots conservative
activists are still trying to find a way to stop him at the party’s
convention in July.”
How could this be? Forget the fact that primary and caucus voters turned out to support delegates pledged to their candidates, which is the whole point of the democratic process. Now these activists want the delegates “unbound”:
“Veteran Republican campaign operatives familiar with convention planning are offering to educate delegates on how they can act as free agents, even if the Republican National Committee insists that delegates adhere to the results of their state primary.”
Conservative blogger Erick Erickson is on board:
“It should be increasingly clear to Republican delegates that their rendezvous in Cleveland is going to be a ritual mass suicide. In addition to losing the presidency, they will lose the Senate, endanger the House, and see catastrophe all the way down the ballot. But they can choose not to commit suicide. The Republican delegates have the power to reject the purported nominee.”
The new wave here is ripping Republicans who are, with whatever degree of reluctance, boarding the Trump train. A Washington Post editorial slams Reince Priebus for having “exposed the rank nihilism that is driving Republican leaders’ acceptance of Mr. Trump.”
Post columnist Michael Gerson, a former George W. Bush staffer, says that Trump was right on one point: “He attacked the Republican establishment as low-energy, cowering weaklings. Now Republican leaders are lining up to surrender to him — like low-energy, cowering weaklings. The capitulation has justified the accusation…
“For the sake of partisanship — for a mess of pottage — some conservatives are surrendering their identity.”
But the anti-Trump folks have a bit of problem: they have no horse to ride. Even if they could overcome the inherent problems of an independent bid, such as ballot access, which conservative is going to be the standard-bearer? Mitt Romney, Tom Coburn and Ben Sasse all say they don’t want to do it.
Kristol, whose old boss Dan Quayle is backing Trump, has bought the web address NeitherTrumpNorHillary.com. But right now the site is just a logo featuring a dog.
Kristol got a little testy yesterday with CNN’s Alisyn Camerota for pointing out the lack of a leader:
“Yes, no one stepped forward,” Kristol said., adding: “Have I been in touch with people? Yes. Do I think the country deserves better? Yes. If you just want to say people so far said, no, can’t happen, great, you guys would love a Trump/Clinton race. Fantastic news every day. Two unattractive candidates fighting stupidly about their personal lives, fighting with the New York Times. I’d like someone to run who could really do better for the country.”
At this point, it’s not about what the press wants. Primaries have consequences. The time for Trump’s detractors to derail him was somewhere between Iowa and Indiana. The question now isn’t whether Trump can win over conservative leaders in the media and the GOP, it’s whether rank-and-file Republican voters are falling in behind him.
Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET). He is the author of five books and is based in Washington. Follow him at @HowardKurtz. Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz.
Isn’t it a little late for that? The Republicans running against Trump have all dropped out. This feels so last month.
I understand why those who believe Trump will lead the GOP to defeat, ruin the party’s brand or just don’t like the guy are still taking their whacks. But it seems like there’s an air of unreality around these last-ditch schemes.
And if they did succeed, of course, the hijacking of the nomination from a man who clobbered the competition and won more than 10 million votes in the primaries would totally rupture the party.
If Bill Kristol, the Weekly Standard editor, succeeds in launching an effort to mount a third-party conservative bid, it will, in my view, hand the election to Hillary Clinton. I know there’s this fantasy that no one gets to 270 and the contest winds up in the House, but that sounds more far-fetched than the notion that Trump wasn’t going to get to 1,237.
And it comes at a time when Trump has stunned the media establishment by pulling almost even in the polls. NBC has Clinton narrowly beating him, 48 to 45 percent, which is essentially a tie. Sure, May matchups don’t mean much, and a presidential campaign is all about the swing states. But those are eye-opening numbers for a non-politician with high negatives who is widely portrayed as polarizing.
The latest headlines on the 2016 elections from the biggest name in politics. See Latest Coverage →
How could this be? Forget the fact that primary and caucus voters turned out to support delegates pledged to their candidates, which is the whole point of the democratic process. Now these activists want the delegates “unbound”:
“Veteran Republican campaign operatives familiar with convention planning are offering to educate delegates on how they can act as free agents, even if the Republican National Committee insists that delegates adhere to the results of their state primary.”
Conservative blogger Erick Erickson is on board:
“It should be increasingly clear to Republican delegates that their rendezvous in Cleveland is going to be a ritual mass suicide. In addition to losing the presidency, they will lose the Senate, endanger the House, and see catastrophe all the way down the ballot. But they can choose not to commit suicide. The Republican delegates have the power to reject the purported nominee.”
The new wave here is ripping Republicans who are, with whatever degree of reluctance, boarding the Trump train. A Washington Post editorial slams Reince Priebus for having “exposed the rank nihilism that is driving Republican leaders’ acceptance of Mr. Trump.”
Post columnist Michael Gerson, a former George W. Bush staffer, says that Trump was right on one point: “He attacked the Republican establishment as low-energy, cowering weaklings. Now Republican leaders are lining up to surrender to him — like low-energy, cowering weaklings. The capitulation has justified the accusation…
“For the sake of partisanship — for a mess of pottage — some conservatives are surrendering their identity.”
But the anti-Trump folks have a bit of problem: they have no horse to ride. Even if they could overcome the inherent problems of an independent bid, such as ballot access, which conservative is going to be the standard-bearer? Mitt Romney, Tom Coburn and Ben Sasse all say they don’t want to do it.
Kristol, whose old boss Dan Quayle is backing Trump, has bought the web address NeitherTrumpNorHillary.com. But right now the site is just a logo featuring a dog.
Kristol got a little testy yesterday with CNN’s Alisyn Camerota for pointing out the lack of a leader:
“Yes, no one stepped forward,” Kristol said., adding: “Have I been in touch with people? Yes. Do I think the country deserves better? Yes. If you just want to say people so far said, no, can’t happen, great, you guys would love a Trump/Clinton race. Fantastic news every day. Two unattractive candidates fighting stupidly about their personal lives, fighting with the New York Times. I’d like someone to run who could really do better for the country.”
At this point, it’s not about what the press wants. Primaries have consequences. The time for Trump’s detractors to derail him was somewhere between Iowa and Indiana. The question now isn’t whether Trump can win over conservative leaders in the media and the GOP, it’s whether rank-and-file Republican voters are falling in behind him.
Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET). He is the author of five books and is based in Washington. Follow him at @HowardKurtz. Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz.
Megyn Kelly Special: Trump defends tone, says bid will be ‘complete waste’ if he doesn’t win
Donald Trump, in an extensive interview with Fox News’ Megyn Kelly, responded to critics of his barbed campaign style by saying he never would have been successful in the primary race if he had acted “presidential” and held back on hitting his political rivals – while declaring that if he doesn’t win the election this fall, he’ll consider his campaign a “complete waste.”
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee was blunt in describing the stakes of the 2016 race as he sees it. Without a victory in the fall, he said, he won’t be able to lower taxes, strengthen the military or “make America great.”
“I will say this: If I don’t go all the way, and if I don’t win, I will consider it to be a total and complete waste of time, energy and money,” Trump said, in the interview that aired Tuesday night on Fox Broadcast Network affiliates.
The candidate addressed a range of topics in his sit-down with Kelly, from his tone to the lead-off presidential debates to his past clashes with the Fox News host.
Trump conceded that, in looking back, he “absolutely” has regrets, without going into detail. But he said if he hadn’t conducted himself in this way, he wouldn’t have come out on top.
“If I were soft, if I were presidential … in a way it’s a bad word, because there’s nothing wrong with being presidential, but if I had not fought back in the way I fought back, I don’t think I would have been successful,” he told Kelly.
The latest headlines on the 2016 elections from the biggest name in politics. See Latest Coverage →
“I respond pretty strongly, but in just about all cases, I’ve been responding to what they did to me,” Trump said. “It’s not a one-way street.”
The interview was conducted on the heels of an April meeting between Kelly and the Republican candidate at Trump Tower in New York City.
Before that meeting, the two had been at odds for months – dating back to a Fox News-hosted debate last August, when Trump accused “The Kelly File” host of asking him unfair questions.
Today, Trump is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, having vanquished 16 primary rivals and now turning his attention toward an expected general election battle against Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton. The former secretary of state, while still trying to shake a primary challenge from Bernie Sanders, has sharpened her criticism of Trump as well in recent weeks, even saying Monday that he’s a “loose cannon” who would be dangerous for the country. And she said he’d return to “failed” economic policies.
Speaking with Kelly, Trump suggested the August debate actually helped prepare him for the battle ahead.
“In a certain way, what you did might have been a favor, because I felt so good about having gotten through -- I said, ‘If I could get through this debate, with those questions, you can get through anything,’” he said.
Trump pointed to that debate when asked at what moment he realized he might actually win the race. “I think that first debate meant something,” Trump said, adding that he felt comfortable with the subject matter and the people he was competing against.
At the same time, Trump tried to explain why he fired back at Kelly for confronting him about his past disparaging comments about women. “I thought it was unfair,” Trump said of the question, while noting it was the first question he’d ever been asked at a debate. “And I’m saying to myself, man, what a question.”
He added, “I don’t really blame you because you’re doing your thing, but from my standpoint, I don’t have to like it.”
As for his role in the presidential election in this year, Trump said: “I really view myself now as somewhat of a messenger… This is a massive thing that’s going on. These are millions and millions of people that have been disenfranchised from this country.”
Trump for the last several weeks has been working to reach out to members of the so-called Republican establishment in Washington he’s spent much of his campaign railing against. He met last week with GOP congressional leaders, including House Speaker Paul Ryan – who has held back an endorsement for now. Trump and the lawmakers came away describing the meetings as positive.
In the interview with Kelly, Trump briefly discussed his personal life, and how his older brother Fred died after a battle with alcoholism. “I have never had a glass of alcohol,” he said, calling his brother’s death the “hardest thing for me to take.”
And while defending his tone on the campaign trail, Trump also said he takes “very seriously” the responsibility of the office he’s seeking.
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The problem with the courts is the same as the problem with many of our other institutions. Called the Skins...
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CNN’s Scott Jennings once again took liberals to the cleaners on the Abrego Garcia case, the ‘Maryland man...
