‘Every time you turn around, he’s said something new. It’s impossible for us to keep up,’ one GOP lawmaker complains.
.. Donald Trump’s combative anti-terrorism speech Monday flouted the typical post-tragedy script and left Republican insiders fretting that the business mogul is unprepared to play a crucial presidential role: national healer.
.. Many Republicans appeared downright fatigued by the almost daily exercise of Trump saying something provocative or worse, and them having to answer questions about it.
Several lawmakers opted to remain silent, apparently hoping this latest controversy would wash away with the next news cycle.
.. The speed with which Trump moved, as well as the immediate reaction by Democrats and the media, forced Republicans to develop a response in Trump’s wake.
.. Trump’s media-driven campaign helps him get his message out, but it leaves every other Republican scrambling to figure out how to live in a Trump-centric world.
Obama goes to war with Trump
The president suggests the presumptive GOP nominee is helping the terrorist cause.
The slightly longer version: The presumptive Republican nominee is a dangerous manipulator who’s either willfully or ignorantly out to damage the country and put more Americans in danger, all for the sake of propelling a brand of politics that responsible Republicans know they can’t support.
.. the Republican’s Muslim immigration ban and other proposals would destroy the pluralism that makes “this country great, and then the terrorists would have won. And we cannot let that happen. I will not let that happen.”
.. It’s the toxins he’s putting into the political conversation with all his “yapping.”
.. “Our diversity and respect for one another, our drawing on the talents of everybody in this country making sure that we are treating everybody fairly, we are not judging people on the basis of what faith they are or what race they are or ethnicity they are or what their sexual orientation is.”
Dump-Trump Talk Returns, but Actually Doing It Won’t Be Easy
Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and one of Mr. Trump’s most unapologetic backers on Capitol Hill, suggested this week that Mr. Trump had “a crucial two- or three-week period” to smooth out his rougher edges or put his nomination in jeopardy.
.. The most prominent voice to call for Mr. Trump’s ouster since his attack on Judge Curiel has been that of Hugh Hewitt, a talk-radio host who is respected in conservative circles but has no role in the nomination process.
.. The talk of forcing Mr. Trump from the ticket presumes something many Republicans are so far not willing to concede: That he is a lost cause whose self-destructive tendencies will make it impossible for him to beat Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee.
Donald Trump’s Mormon Problem
Throughout the primaries, Mr. Trump was pummeled in the Book of Mormon Belt. In Utah, he suffered one of his worst defeats, finishing dead last with a paltry 14 percent of the vote.
.. Of all the iniquities committed in this less-than-saintly campaign season, only one has managed to elicit an official response from Mormon headquarters in Salt Lake City: Mr. Trump’s call for a ban on Muslims entering the United States. “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is neutral in regard to party politics and election campaigns,” the church’s statement read. “However, it is not neutral in relation to religious freedom.”
It’s easy to see how Mormons might get spooked by a presidential contender bashing a religious minority.
.. In anexpansive Gallup report released last month, none of the 62 demographic groups surveyed were more ambivalent toward both presumptive nominees than Mormons were: Just 33 percent had a favorable view of Mr. Trump; for Mrs. Clinton, it was 21 percent.
.. They have high turnout and a reputation in campaign circles as top-notch canvassers unafraid of knocking on strangers’ doors.