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Transgender people should be able to use whatever bathroom they want, Donald Trump said Thursday. "Oh, I had a feeling that question was going to come up, I will tell you. North Carolina did something that was very strong. And they're paying a big price. There's a lot of problems," the Republican presidential candidate said during a town hall event on NBC's "Today." Referring to comments from an unnamed commentator who on Wednesday said North Carolina should "leave it the way it is right now," Trump said he agreed. "Leave it the way it is. North Carolina, what they're going...

GOP front-runner Donald Trump — with his family at this side — paid a visit Thursday morning to the TODAY Plaza to answer voters' questions in a live town hall. After his wife, Melania, and adult children spoke on behalf of the candidate, Trump answered questions submitted by people in the crowd and through social media.

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz on Thursday said front-runner Donald Trump had defied “common sense” and embraced political correctness by coming out against North Carolina’s law barring people from using public restrooms of the opposite sex. “He said he thought men should be able to go into the girls bathroom if they want,” scoffed Mr. Cruz, a U.S. senator from Texas. “Let me ask you, have we going stark raving mad? This is political correctness. This is nonsense.”

Donald Trump says transgender people should be able to "use the bathroom that they feel is appropriate." On NBC's Today show Thursday morning, the GOP front-runner said he opposes North Carolina's "very strong" bathroom bill, which allows businesses to prohibit transgender people from doing just that. "North Carolina did something that was very strong and they're paying a big price. And there's a lot of problems." Trump said.

Donald J. Trump said Thursday that transgender people should be allowed to use whatever bathroom they feel most comfortable with — including at Trump Tower in New York. Dipping into a contentious issue by taking a stand many Republicans oppose, Mr. Trump told a town-hall-style event, hosted by NBC’s “Today” show at Rockefeller Center in Manhattan, that when people go to the restroom, they should “use the bathroom they feel is appropriate.” Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential front-runner, was responding to a question about a bill that North Carolina’s governor signed into law last month that bars individuals in the...

Donald Trump had waded into one of the most bizarre controversies to have roiled American politics, that being whether or not transgendered people should be allowed to use the public bathroom according to the gender they identify with rather the one that biology has assigned them. North Carolina recently passed a law that mandates that people use the bathroom according to which gender is recorded on their birth certificate. The law has caused an uproar in the LBGT community. Some businesses and performance artists have decided to boycott the state, even those who do business and perform in countries that...

Trump acknowledged that he “had a feeling that question was going to come up” and proceeded toe the liberal line of political correctness: “Well, look, North Carolina did something that was very strong and they're paying a big price and there's a lot of problems....People go, they use the bathroom that they feel is appropriate. There has been so little trouble.” ... Fellow co-host Savannah Guthrie turned to the subject of abortion: “The Republican platform, every four years, has a provision that states that the right of the unborn child shall not be infringed. And it makes no exceptions for...

JERSEY CITY, N.J. (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said Thursday that transgender people should be able to use whichever bathroom they choose, voicing opposition to part of a far-reaching North Carolina law that critics says is discriminatory. Speaking at a town hall event on NBC's "Today" Thursday, Trump was asked about North Carolina's so-called "bathroom law," which, among other things, requires transgender people to use bathrooms corresponding to the gender on their birth certificate in state government buildings as well as public schools and universities. Trump said the law had caused unnecessary strife for the state, which he...

It is such a gimme. Women and girls are very vulnerable in the restroom. The walls are usually thick. They are in a compromised position. The transgendered have no proof that they are what they claim to be. No one is examining the transgendered for mental illness either. What is to stop packs of rapists from dressing like women and raping women and molesting little girls. It was such a gimme and Donald dropped the ball.

I like the way he focused on the role of law. North Carolina enacted a law, and now "they're paying a big price, and there's a lot of problems." Law wasn't needed, because: "There have been very few complaints the way it is. People go, they use the bathroom that they feel is appropriate, there has been so little trouble." There was already a social adjustment that accommodated people who needed to be accommodated. Asked whether he would let Caitlyn Jenner, a trans woman, use the bathroom of her choice at Trump Tower, he said he would. He added, "There's...

Republican Donald Trump’s top staffer in Iowa accused rival Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) campaign Tuesday of blatantly bribing delegates but backpedaled on the accusations when pressed for specifics. Asked on CNN whether the Cruz campaign has proved better at “gathering” delegates so far in the race, Tana Goertz, Iowa co-chair for the Trump campaign, responded they haven’t been ethically collecting delegates at all. “Oh, no, no, no, not gathering delegates, stealing, lying, and bribing people to become delegates. I'm sorry if I wasn't clear,” Goertz, a former contest on “The Apprentice,” responded with a smile. But when CNN hosts John...

It wasn’t a good night for Ted Cruz, who finished third in New York amid a landslide for Donald Trump in his home state. There was some talk, which turned out to be more hopeful than realistic, that because of the fact New York was a closed primary with registration rules so restrictive that you had to be registered as a Republican back in October of last year in order to vote in it the circumstances would serve to hold down his vote – perhaps even keep him under 50 percent. That didn’t happen; with 70 percent of the vote...

On April 13, ABC’s World News Tonight correspondent Tom Llamas devoted most of that night’s report to chilling death threats against the Colorado state Republican party chairman, angered at how Donald Trump failed to win any delegates at the weekend party convention. Besides that one report, and two minor mentions (one on ABC’s Good Morning America and on Thursday’s CBS Evening News), that’s all the broadcast news attention given to reports of actual death threats in this increasingly nasty presidential race: 110 seconds in total, not a moment of which was on NBC. But since the Colorado convention through Thursday...

Whenever Donald Trump and his followers are confronted with his evidence of his abysmally terrible polling numbers on personal favorability and versus Hillary Clinton, they typically respond with a pair of deflections. First, they say that Trump "hasn't even started" attacking Hillary yet. Setting aside the fact that Trump has taken many hard jabs at Mrs. Clinton over a span of months, this line of thinking requires a logical leap: That once he does train virtually all of his fire on her, it will both hurt her and help him. American voters have been subjected to endlessTrump coverage since last spring, over...

Strong headwinds of unpopularity continue to hobble leading Republicans Donald Trump and Ted Cruz with the public at-large, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. By contrast, most Republicans see Trump and Cruz in a favorable light - 56 and 58 percent, respectively - while John Kasich is less popular among fellow partisans (47 percent) despite receiving the best ratings among the broader electorate. The poll finds Trump suffering little damage from recent controversies over punishments for women who have abortions and the arrest of his campaign manager, though the real-estate mogul’s ratings are still in the doldrums. Thirty-one...

In yet another act of gross exaggeration, Donald Trump’s newly-appointed convention manager Paul Manafort accused the Cruz campaign of engaging in “Gestapo tactics” to win GOP delegates. Let’s, if possible, put aside how loathsome it is that the Trump campaign would accuse another Republican of doing anything close to what Hitler’s secret police did to the Jews. Trump ought to consider what his own campaign is doing. Whose campaign is charging Cruz with false crimes at every opportunity? That would be Trump’s. Whose convention manager says angry voters should “visit the hotel rooms” of delegates who may not support Trump...

Sen. Ted Cruz claims that Roger Stone, The Daily Caller Men’s Fashion editor, “decides” what Matt Drudge posts on his website Drudge Report.In an interview with Mike Slater on “The Mike Slater Show” Monday, Cruz said, “If people want to get on the “Trump train,” they can. I actually think we need real and meaningful solutions to the problems in this country, and as president my focus is going to be on three things: jobs, freedom and security.”Slater asked Cruz what he thought of the Drudge Report and the Texas senator replied, “Look, Drudge Report over the years has done a good...

With his win in Tuesday’s open primary in the blue state of Wisconsin, Ted Cruz has now beaten Donald Trump in 11 of 21 states that have been contested to date outside of the South. Cruz has now beaten Trump in three Midwestern states (Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota—with Cruz having finished second and Trump third in the latter), one Northeastern state (Maine), three Plains states (Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas), three Western Frontier states (Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming), and one state outside of the Lower 48 (Alaska). The South is Trump country, and he is undefeated there, having posted 11 wins...

Riding a rebellion fueled by opposition to illegal immigration and pessimism about the nation's future, Donald Trump leads a scrambling duo of competitors less than three months before California's Republican presidential primary, a new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times statewide poll has found. Yet the party whose nomination he is seeking has fractured because of his candidacy, with ominous prospects for Republicans if the New York businessman emerges victorious after the party's summer convention. A quarter of California Republican voters polled said they would refuse to vote for Trump in November if he is the party's nominee. Almost one-third of those...

....But among the voters most likely to turn out, the poll shows the race between Trump and Cruz is nearly tied, with Trump at 36% versus Cruz at 35%. The difference illustrates how a low turnout in the June 7 primary could hurt Trump and boost Cruz....