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Trump: 'I identify with some things as a Democrat'
The Hill ^ | 07/24/2015 | Jesse Byrnes

Posted on 07/24/2015 6:18:42 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum

Donald Trump, a 2016 Republican presidential candidate, said Friday he sometimes identifies more as a Democrat when pressed to explain previous statements that the economy generally does better under Democrats than Republicans.

"I identify with some things as a Democrat," Trump said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" when pressed about the comments from 2004, adding that "generally speaking" he was "never a Bush fan."

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"When the economy crashed so horribly under George Bush because of mistakes they made having to do with banking and lots of other things, I don't think the Democrats would have done that," Trump said.

"Now, I see it both ways, but I hated what I was watching in the last two years of George Bush, because it was a bubble that was waiting to explode," he added. "What they were doing was a death wish, and I saw that."

"I have seen things done by Republicans that are not good and are not smart, and I would not do that," he said.

The celebrity real estate developer skyrocketed to the top of many polls following the launch of his GOP White House bid in mid-June, amid weeks of criticism and media attention to his controversial comments on Mexican immigrants.

Trump made waves this week after he threatened during an interview with The Hill to run as a third-party candidate. He played down that possibility Thursday, saying, "I want to run as a Republican. I think I'll get the nomination."

"Over the years as a businessman, I've always helped everybody," Trump said Friday on MSNBC, further explaining his past support for both Democrats and Republicans.

"I'm a conservative, I want to run as a Republican, I'm leading every poll," he said. "I do not want to do independent at all. Now, if I'm treated poorly, that's one thing. If I'm treated well and with great respect and don't win, I would not do that."

Trump had suggested to The Hill on Wednesday that the Republican National Committee "has not been very supportive." He said Friday that the RNC has been "very, very nice over the last few days.”


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 2016elections; 2016issues; donaldtrump; rnc; trump; trump2016
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To: ek_hornbeck

That’s been my whole point. You don’t have to like Trump, just understand that he is serving a useful purpose.


201 posted on 07/24/2015 8:26:36 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: Ohioan

I have been supporting Cruz from the beginning because he strikes me as the most conservative but I have not had a chance to read his book yet or do any real research on him. I don’t understand a couple of his recent votes but I also have concerns about all of the others.

I am currently reading Trump’s book, “Time to Get Tough: Making America #1 Again” and so far I am thoroughly impressed.

I think the mistake people here are making is that they are thinking in terms of democrat/republican rather than liberal/conservative and all of the many definitions or parts of conservationism.

In his book, Trump refers to liberals with total disdain and says many things he could have taken straight from the posts here on FR.


202 posted on 07/24/2015 8:27:22 AM PDT by Amntn
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To: dfwgator

That has become the stance of the amnesty crowd. Cruz, Rubio, and Trump are saying the same thing, i.e., build the war and then we will decide what to do with those already here. It is a way to deflect the question of what do we do with the 12 to 20 million lawbreakers already here..


203 posted on 07/24/2015 8:27:40 AM PDT by kabar
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To: TNMOUTH

I never watched Trumps TV show because his personality turned me off, it still does, in spite of the topics that he is bring up. He is talking about things that need to be talked about but I just want to hear Cruz say them.


204 posted on 07/24/2015 8:28:45 AM PDT by Ditter ( God Bless Texas!)
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To: kabar
Trump is wavering on his anti-amnesty stance. Now he is talking about allowing those with “merit” to stay.

That doesn't surprise me, 4 years ago he was attacking anti-amnesty Republicans and calling Romney's (equally insincere) remarks about illegals self-deporting "heartless". It's kind of funny, in a pathetic way, to watch opportunistic fraud attacks another.

However, the cat is already out of the bag - millions of Americans who oppose amnesty and open borders want something done about it, and they won't change their tune just because Donald Trump does. If the GOP runs a pro-amnesty candidate, these people will either vote third party or not vote at all, and rightly so.

205 posted on 07/24/2015 8:28:50 AM PDT by ek_hornbeck
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To: kabar

But at least get the wall built, that’s more than anyone else is saying.

Personally I think it’s very easy to make them self-deport, Cut off the bennies, and punish the companies that hire them.


206 posted on 07/24/2015 8:31:04 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: ek_hornbeck
" which will hopefully force the GOP to address the issue."

Maybe you have not gotten the meno. The GOP will do nothing about (illegal) immigration. They have repeated demonstrated they what more cheap labor. All of them every damn one from Jeb to Cruz except for Trump is in favor of bring more immigrants into the USA. The GOP as it is today, will not ever solve our immigration problem.

207 posted on 07/24/2015 8:36:20 AM PDT by jpsb (Believe nothing until it has been officially denied)
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To: dfwgator

My tinfoil hat theory is that Trump is Cruz’s stalking horse, out taking the heat early on, raising issues, and will eventually bow out or flame out. He’s sort of akin to what Lindsey Graham is for Jeb. I think Graham is the GOP-e plant for Jeb. He will say the things that take heat from the right that Jeb doesn’t want to say. Like attack trump.


208 posted on 07/24/2015 8:37:02 AM PDT by lwd
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To: jpsb
"Except for Cruz being a secret trade deal NWO Globalist and a Patriot Act fascist I agree."

Oh, right, I forgot.

I think he was also seen attending a Furry convention dressed as a raccoon. You left that one out.

209 posted on 07/24/2015 8:38:18 AM PDT by CatherineofAragon (("This is a Laztatorship. You don't like it, get a day's rations and get out of this office."))
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To: jpsb
. All of them every damn one from Jeb to Cruz except for Trump is in favor of bring more immigrants into the USA

And Trump was for it before he was against it, and when his next mood swing or reality show appearance comes along he'll no doubt be for it again.

The point isn't finding some messiah candidate in this election, because there isn't one. The point is to send a clear message to the GOP that they will lose if they run pro-amnesty candidates in future elections.

210 posted on 07/24/2015 8:41:43 AM PDT by ek_hornbeck
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To: longtermmemmory
how? he has always said, wall first, illegals alien issue second. (like many here I might add)

Besides being a simplistic answer, Trump is trying to avoid answering the question. This morning Trump said, Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump on Friday hinted at a “merit system” for some of the approximately 11 million illegal immigrants in the country while saying that “we take the bad ones and get ‘em the hell out.”

"“Well, the first thing we do is take the bad ones of which there are, unfortunately, quite a few,” he said. “We take the bad ones and get ‘em the hell out. We get ‘em out. We give ‘em back to Mexico or we make sure they stay — or where they come from. Because they don’t all come from Mexico. They come from other places. They use that border but they come from other places. We get ‘em out and get ‘em out fast. And we get ‘em out permanently. That’s a big thing.”

“Then the other ones — and I’m a very big believer in merit system,” he said. “I have to tell you … some of these people have been here, they’ve done a good job. You know, in some cases, sadly, they’ve been living under the shadows, etc., etc. We have to do something. So whether it’s merit or whether it’s whatever, but I’m a believer in the merit system. If somebody’s been outstanding, we try and work something out. But before we do anything, we have to secure the border because the border is like having no border.”

Securing the border only solves part of the problem. 40% of the lawbreakers came here legally and overstayed their visas. We need a system to track and deport visa overstays.

Trump provides no specifics on exactly how many of his estimate of 34 million illegal aliens would be allowed to stay and how his "merit" system would be implemented. Gingrich had something similar. Even McCain said that the "2 million criminal aliens should be deported immediately."

We need to focus on first things first. Build the wall. That is what got Reagan. He gave them amnesty with a promise of a wall. no wall to date.

There was no wall proposal in the 1986 Simpson--Mazzoli bill. There were enforcement provisions including fining employers who hired illegal aliens. It was never enforced and the amnesty process was rife with fraud. Phony document mills were set up within blocks of the processing centers. The USG estimated that 1 million would apply (you had to be here five years to apply), but the true number turned out to be 2.7 million.

Lets reverse that. A REAL wall with a promise of reform. Let gridlock take care of reform.

How about attriction thru enforcement? We also need to reduce legal immigration substantially from the current 1.1 million a year.

211 posted on 07/24/2015 8:42:26 AM PDT by kabar
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To: dfwgator

Cruz and Trump are 180 degrees apart on trade. Cruz voted to fast track 3 secret Obamatrade deals. One of which (allegedly) allows millions of new “workers” into the country. Trump say he dump our lousy trade deals and negotiate good “nation to nation” deals. Steve Forbes (a very smart man) said the exact same thing when he ran for president back in 1999-2000. Sadly the empty suit W was chosen by R voters instead much better Forbes.


212 posted on 07/24/2015 8:43:44 AM PDT by jpsb (Believe nothing until it has been officially denied)
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To: lwd
My tinfoil hat theory is that Trump is Cruz’s stalking horse, out taking the heat early on, raising issues, and will eventually bow out or flame out. He’s sort of akin to what Lindsey Graham is for Jeb. I think Graham is the GOP-e plant for Jeb. He will say the things that take heat from the right that Jeb doesn’t want to say. Like attack trump.

The difference is that according to polls, the other liberal Republicans aren't putting a dent into Jeb's numbers. Graham and Pataki are statistically at zero, Christie isn't much more.

In contrast, the glut of conservative and pseudo-conservative candidates are fragmenting the anti-Jeb vote in such a way that Jeb's nomination is almost assured (other than Trump, every other conservative candidate is hovering around 5%). If anything, the dozen or so conservatives and pseudo-conservatives are unwittingly stalking horses for Jeb.

213 posted on 07/24/2015 8:44:59 AM PDT by ek_hornbeck
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Comment #214 Removed by Moderator

To: Gen.Blather

I guess he did not know that Clinton and Rubin started the bad home loan scheme to halt normal banking procedures of loan qualification to get blacks quota equal with whites in home ownership. Clinton’s race baiting Justice Department threatened to sue the banks for racial discrimination so they made a deal.

Bush mentioned, a couple of times, that the loans were a problem but he got shouted down by Barney Frank and friends as a dirty racist. So, being the coward he is, Bush shut up as ordered by the radicals and he let the problem of bad real estate loans, build up until it crashed.


215 posted on 07/24/2015 8:46:21 AM PDT by SaraJohnson
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To: austinaero

Look you self righteous jackass...I was using Looney Bin because that’s the phrase the other poster used....the one I was responding to. And yes, I think some of Trumps’ hardest core supporters are a bit looney...because they refuse to see the 50 year history of the man that flies in the face of everything he’s said for the last 12 minutes. That IS LOONEY, by definition.


216 posted on 07/24/2015 8:46:59 AM PDT by C. Edmund Wright (WTF? How Karl Rove and the Establishment Lost...Again)
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To: ek_hornbeck
Cruz is the only other GOP candidate who has been fairly consistently opposed to amnesty, but he didn't talk much about it.

Cruz supports legalization of the lawbreakers, which is amnesty. He also supports quadrupling the guest worker programs.

Cruz Tries to Claim the Middle Ground on Immigration

“The amendment that I introduced removed the path to citizenship, but it did not change the underlying work permit from the Gang of Eight,” he said during a recent visit to El Paso. Mr. Cruz also noted that he had not called for deportation or, as Mitt Romney famously advocated, self-deportation.

Mr. Cruz said recent polling indicated that people outside Washington support some reform, including legal status without citizenship. He said he was against naturalization because it rewarded lawbreakers and was unfair to legal immigrants. It also perpetuates illegal crossings, he added.

Besides barring citizenship while instituting some level of legalization for those here already, Mr. Cruz has proposed increasing the number of green cards awarded annually, to 1.35 million from 675,000. He also wants to eliminate the per-country limit that he said left applicants from countries like Mexico, China and India hamstrung when they tried to gain legal entry to this country.

217 posted on 07/24/2015 8:48:20 AM PDT by kabar
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

I do not understand all the Trump threads and Trump love here on FR. So he said some strong things against illegal immigration. Good for him. But that does not make him an all-around conservative. Trump is doing, and will do, more damage than good to the conservative cause. Trump makes Ross Perot look like a serious candidate.


218 posted on 07/24/2015 8:52:34 AM PDT by Charles Henrickson
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
He has to say this and, perhaps, even believe it.

The fight is no longer R vs D. It's NWO vs anyone who doesn't want to live under the boot of bankster run centralized global governance.

They'd love nothing more than for the people to NOT step back, see the true picture and keep fighting their clan wars between R & D--two parties with leadership under their control.

219 posted on 07/24/2015 8:54:20 AM PDT by riri (Obama's Amerika--Not a fun place.)
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To: C. Edmund Wright
And yes, I think some of Trumps’ hardest core supporters are a bit looney...because they refuse to see the 50 year history of the man that flies in the face of everything he’s said for the last 12 minutes.

The devotion of some of Trump's supporters can be mind-boggling. When I ask them how they can trust Trump on immigration today when 4 years ago he thought that even Mitt Romney (!!!) was too conservative on the issue, the more polite Trump supporters just ignore the question and pretend it never happened, the less polite ones go into hysterics and paroxysms of hatred.

I think that the explanation is that after years of disappointing Republican candidates, people are convinced some Great White Hope will come along and change all of that. It's a case of grasping at straws out of desperation, thinking that this time it's "the one" and that their knight in shining armor has really arrived.

220 posted on 07/24/2015 8:56:56 AM PDT by ek_hornbeck
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