Free Republic

In his first Sunday show interview since taking on an expanded role in Donald Trump's campaign, Paul Manafort was quick to raise questions about the tactics Sen. Ted Cruz' campaign is using to secure delegates. After being asked whether threatening delegates is fair game in the hunt for the 1237 required to secure the republican nomination, Manafort responded, "It's not my style, and it's not Donald Trump's style … But it is Ted Cruz's style." He then called the Cruz campaign's methods "Gestapo tactics, scorched-earth tactics." "We're going to be filing several protests because reality is, you know, they are...

Newt Gingrich on Wednesday marveled at one of Donald Trump's biggest accomplishments in the 2016 race — making Ted Cruz appear normal. The former House speaker predicted that Cruz could be boosted at a contested convention by establishment support, something that would be unthinkable without an even more polarizing figure like Trump in the race. “The challenge is entirely on Trump,” said Gingrich, who has been supportive of Trump. “He is not gonna get any help out of the establishment. They have reluctantly concluded that if, you know — Trump in a funny way has normalized Ted Cruz because without...

Usually when Trump makes a wild accusation there’s some dubious peg on which to hang it, like when he claimed that Cruz was behind the ad in Utah from Liz Mair’s anti-Trump Super PAC targeting Melania Trump. That wasn’t true, as even Trump superfan Sean Hannity eventually admitted, but the ad obviously was designed to move votes to Cruz. Trump assumed culpability, wrongly, because Cruz benefited.What’s the peg for this new claim, though? Or have we reached the point where Trump is gaslighting his fans without any tether to reality? In an error-riddled statement released Tuesday night, the Donald...

Donald Trump's prediction that the U.S. economy was on the verge of a "very massive recession" hit a wall of skepticism on Sunday from economists who questioned the Republican presidential front-runner's calculations. In an interview with the Washington Post published on Saturday, the billionaire businessman said a combination of high unemployment and an overvalued stock market had set the stage for another economic slump. He put real unemployment above 20 percent. "We're not heading for a recession, massive or minor, and the unemployment rate is not 20 percent," said Harm Bandholz, chief U.S. economist at UniCredit Research in New York....

Shock: Ted Cruz Takes Lead in Reuters Poll Over Donald Trump for First Time by MIKE FLYNN5 Apr 2016 For the first time in the Republican primary, Reuters’ tracking poll shows Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)97% leading Donald Trump among likely voters in the Republican primaries. This is also the first time Donald Trump hasn’t led the tracking poll in 2016. Cruz has the support of 39 percent of likely Republican voters nationwide, just ahead of Donald Trump, who has 37 percent support. Ohio Governor John Kasich is a distant third, with 23 percent support. In the broader survey of...

Donald Trump on Saturday told a crowd of thousands he was sanguine about potential hostilities between North Korea and its neighbors. Speaking at a rally in Rothschild, Wisconsin ahead of the state’s primary on Tuesday, the Republican Donald Trump on Saturday told a crowd of thousands he was sanguine about potential hostilities between North Korea and its neighbors. Speaking at a rally in Rothschild, Wisconsin ahead of the state’s primary on Tuesday, the Republican presidential frontrunner said that if conflict between Japan and nuclear-armed North Korea were to break out, “it would be a terrible thing but if they do,...

Plenty of buzz about this last night, especially among anti-Trumpers struck by the coincidence of Trump superfan Newt criticizing him publicly on the same day that an even bigger superfan, Ann Coulter, called Trump “mental” in an interview. (Matt Drudge, yet another superfan, is leading as I write this with the news of Trump’s campaign manager being arrested for battery.) Are Trump’s cheerleaders heading for the lifeboats because they know something we don’t? Nah. They’re still onboard, they’re just alarmed that the captain won’t steer away from that iceberg that keeps getting closer. Trump’s fans within the commentariat have, I...