WND EXCLUSIVE
TRUMP TRAIN PICKS UP STEAM WITH CONSERVATIVES
'Let's make sure Hillary Clinton doesn't get elected'
Garth Kant
WASHINGTON – There are increasing signs in the nation’s capital that conservative resistance to supporting Donald Trump is lessening and the GOP may be starting to unify behind its presumptive presidential nominee.
As chair of the House Freedom Caucus, U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is the leader of the most conservative group in Congress, and he told WND, “I think we should unite around our nominee and make sure Hillary Clinton doesn’t get elected.”
When asked if it was right for the head of the GOP convention to hesitate to endorse the party candidate, Jordan described relations between his caucus and House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., as very positive, but said, “I think it’s important that Republicans and Republican leaders unite around our nominee.”
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio
Cracks in the resistance are starting to show at the influential magazine National Review, which was so adamantly opposed to Trump it devoted an entire issue in January to “Against Trump,” featuring 22 top conservative commentators.
As recently as March 30, regular contributor Jim Geraghty wrote that Trump was “reckless, obnoxious, ill-informed, erratic, hot-tempered, pathologically dishonest, narcissistic, crude and catastrophically unqualified for the presidency.”
But on Tuesday, Geraghty seemed to have had a significant change of heart and appeared to have at least one foot aboard the Trump train after penning a piece titled, “A Trump Win Would Destroy Clinton’s Legacy – and Obama’s.”
The writer seemed to find a substantial silver lining, observing, “Trump’s rise has been brutally painful for conservative Republicans. His victory in November would be catastrophic for the Democratic party.”
And, if that wasn’t an endorsement of Trump, it certainly showed a preference for the alternative, as Geraghty observed, “[I]f he’s competitive in November, or wins, it will be a loud, clear signal that Obama’s presidency largely failed. Eight years of his policies and leadership left Americans angry, disappointed, and frightened enough to be willing to roll the dice on Trump.”
Influential conservative commentator and National Review contributing editor Andrew McCarthy contributed to the “Against Trump” issue but is now leaving the door open to supporting the nominee, writing on Tuesday, “despite being anti-Trump, I am not #NeverTrump.”
Andrew McCarthy
What McCarthy wants, essentially, is the author of the “Art of the Deal” to make a deal with conservatives to win their support. On both Saturday and Tuesday, McCarthy’s columns emphasized the need for assurances from Trump.
On Saturday, McCarthy wrote, “Many of us will never be comfortable with the prospect of Donald Trump as president,” but, “Mr. Trump could make that choice easier by giving us assurances about who would be in a Trump administration and where they would try to take the country. Particularly in the absence of such assurances, we should keep exploring our options.”
By options, he meant supporting a possible independent candidacy.
But, by Tuesday, he implicitly acknowledged that option was not viable, and implied even more strongly that he might support Trump, if the candidate would just offer right assurances:
“I want assurances about who would be the leaders of a Trump administration, about what Trump would actually do if elected (so far, there seem to be few if any abiding principles), about whom he would appoint to the courts and the bureaucracy, and about why I should believe that any assurances he might provide are credible — since they certainly wouldn’t be enforceable. To put it in Trumpist terms, why should I roll over for a guy who is giving me nothing and whom I don’t see as meaningfully different from Hillary Clinton? What kind of deal is that? If I don’t get what I need, I’m ready to walk away from the table. If enough people like me do that, Trump can’t win. I assume he wants to win. That means he has an incentive to satisfy me. The campaign has not turned out as I wanted. I have a weak hand. But I still have cards left to play, and I’m playing them.”
The GOP establishment is even likelier to begin lining up behind the nominee in light of polls that show the #NeverTrump movement in retreat and the candidate as having gained significant momentum, even among those who traditionally vote Democratic.
- Reuters/IPSOS: Trump and Clinton are now in a statistical tie nationally, with the Democrat at 41 percent and the Republican at 40 percent. 19 percent are undecided.
- NBC News: 85 percent of Republicans are now ready to support Trump.
- AFL/CIO: A union-commissioned poll found working-class Americans in households making less than $75,000 a year favored Trump over Clinton by almost two-to-one, and favored Trump over Sanders by more than three-to-one.
- CBS: Almost half of those who voted for Bernie Sanders in the West Virginia Democratic primary said they would rather vote for Trump than Clinton in November. 44 percent said they’d vote for Trump; 31 percent said neither candidate; and only 23 percent said they’d support Clinton.
Despite all the doubt and controversy over whether Trump is a genuine conservative, Jordan told WND he saw the decision to support Trump as very simple. That’s because the congressman saw the alternative as unacceptable – something he illustrated with a story from his own experience.
The Ohioan called it a privilege to be on the House Select Committee on Benghazi, but described how appalled he was to witness firsthand how former Secretary of State Clinton “told her family and the Egyptian prime minister one thing on the night of the attack but told the American people an entirely different story.”
“And so, to me this is real simple,” he concluded. “You’ve got to have people in positions of power and influence in our government who are straightforward with citizens and the taxpayers. She was not straightforward on the night four Americans gave their lives for their country.”
“I think we have to focus on making sure that our nominee beats their likely nominee, Secretary Clinton, and is the next president,” he stated softly but emphatically. “So, I think it’s important for everyone in our party to unite around our nominee.”
Jordan said he thought the biggest problem in Washington was the broken trust between voters and elected officials. But he had a remedy for that.
“I think we’ve got to do is what we told the voters we were going to do. That’s why we formed the freedom Caucus, because there are countless number of Americans who feel like this town has forgotten about them.”
He added, “We make Congress way too complicated. The job is to do what you said. So that’s what we’ve got to focus on. A Republican president will certainly make it easier to accomplish.”
Jordan also mentioned the crucial impact the next president will have on the Supreme Court, with Trump vowing to appoint constitutional conservatives and Clinton assured of doing just the opposite, remarking, “That’s a huge reason to support our nominee.”
Some have tried to paint the GOP in disarray and hopelessly divided over Trump. WND asked Jordan if it was the same as the expression about football teams, that winning tended to solve most problems?
“Winning beats losing every single time,” Jordan agreed, with a chuckle. “It is always better to win. You lose, you learn from it, but winning still beats losing. You play to win.”
In conclusion, the Ohioan was optimistic, but sounded a note of caution.
“If our party unites, and the same number of Republicans who voted for McCain and Romney come out and vote, I think we win because Donald Trump is actually bringing new people into the party. But if we don’t unite, then were not going to win. So, yes, we need to unite.
”Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2016/05/trump-train-picks-up-steam-with-conservatives/#p2TvACMGL5mwjeem.99
My comments: Trump is a Gamble, but Hillary is Evil Personified .
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