Cruz Exposed Trump's Biggest Weakness in a Race Against Hillary

RUSH: In terms of substance? I disagree with Chris Wallace. I think there was substance in this debate last night, and depending on what you want -- depending on what you were hoping to see and then what you think going forward -- there's really only one candidate in this debate last night which was chock-full of genuine policy-oriented substance, and that was Cruz. And I happen to know, folks...

I hear from people constantly, as you can imagine, and I hear from you even on the phones. But there have been people during the entirety of this campaign who think that Trump is a pretender, that he really doesn't know much about what all this is about, that he's getting by on the cult of celebrity and other things in our pop culture that people get excited by and attach to. There have been people who say, "We've gotta expose Trump. Trump's gotta be exposed. He doesn't know what he's talking about. He doesn't know conservatism.

"He doesn't know policy. He's just up there saying things that sound good in a populist sense." So what Cruz did last night was essentially expose that. If that's what you think needs and has needed to happen, Cruz did it last night. And probably the best way to illustrate how it happened is, one of the fears that a lot of anti-Trump people have is he's not really even a Republican. And they keep talking about all of his donations to people like Chuck Schumer and the Clintons.

Trump's response was, "Hey, look, you know, I live in New York City and they run the show there, and I'm in business, and there are certain things you have to do to get things done. You have to work with these people. But I'm a Republican." And he's made it clear, and he's tried to make that point over and over again. But Trump found last night Ted Cruz illustrating that. (summarized) "Look, if you think we have to beat Hillary Clinton, Trump's not the guy to do it. Trump cannot go out and hit Hillary Clinton on any of the things that she has done, any of her corruption, because he has contributed to her.

"He has donated. All that would have to happen," Cruz says, "is for Trump to hit Hillary in the debate and Hillary, and all she's gotta do is say, 'Donald, I don't know what your problem is. You donated to me to do this exact thing. So I don't know what your problem is now.'" And Cruz said, "We can't nominate somebody who donated to her." It's akin to the people that said we shouldn't nominate Romney. "If we nominate Romney, there's no way we can get Obama on Obamacare because Romney invented it in Massachusetts.

"Romney gave us Romneycare, and the guy that wrote Romneycare then turned around and wrote Obamacare," and it took Obamacare off the table as far as Romney's concerned. He couldn't hit it because there's a retort, "What do you mean you don't like Obamacare? You wrote its father. You implemented and signed into law its father, Romneycare. What are you?" And Cruz's point was that same set of circumstances with Hillary are going to occur.

Because it can be demonstrated that Trump's donations to the Clintons over the years -- including to the Clinton Crime Family Foundation -- have facilitated political move that Hillary Clinton has made. So the people who have wanted Trump exposed, that was pretty substantively done by Cruz. On the Rubio side, what Rubio did was literally just laugh at Trump all night, literally made fun of him, mock him. Not act frightened or afraid of him, and not be worried about ticking off his supporters, either.

You Can Easily Judge the Character of a Man by How He Treats Those Who Can Do Nothing for Him

With GOP nomination looming, Trump is slated to take witness stand in fraud trial

"Here's a part of the political calendar that nobody in the Republican Party seems to have noticed: This spring, just as the GOP nomination battle enters its final phase, frontrunner Donald Trump could be forced to take time out for some unwanted personal business: He's due to take the witness stand in a federal courtroom in San Diego, where he is being accused of running a financial fraud. In court filings last Friday, lawyers for both sides in a long-running civil lawsuit over the now defunct Trump University named Trump on their witness lists. That makes it all but certain that the reality-show star and international businessman will be forced to be grilled under oath over allegations in the lawsuit that he engaged in deceptive trade practices and scammed thousands of students who enrolled in his "university" courses in response to promises he would make them rich in the real estate market.

Although the case has been winding its way through the courts for the past five years - and Trump has denied all wrongdoing - the final pretrial conference is now slated for May 6, according to the latest pleadings in the case. No trial date has been set, but the judge has indicated his interest in moving the case forward, the pleadings show.

"This is pretty amazing," said Scott Reed, a veteran Republican Party consultant, about Trump's upcoming due date in federal court. "Usually, you clean this stuff up before you run for president."............................ Trump is accused of financially threatening woman during secret deposition

........."Trump has made little secret of his inclination to strike back hard - on the campaign trail and in the courts - against anybody who opposes him. But the secret deposition in the San Diego case calls attention to the danger that a Trump presidency could turn into what one lawyer who has sued Trump called a "litigation circus" in which a sitting president would be forced to submit to multiple depositions and even jury trials as a result of ongoing civil lawsuits.

Little noticed while he has emerged as the Republican frontrunner for president, Trump remains mired in litigation on multiple fronts. In addition to defending the Trump University suits, he has initiated legal action in the past year against restaurateurs and the Univision network after they pulled out of business deals over his comments about Mexican immigrants. He has also recently threatened to sue rival Ted Cruz on the grounds that he is not eligible to be president because he was born in Canada. At a CNN forum Thursday night, in response to a question about his propensity to threaten opponents with lawsuits, Trump replied, in part, "I have wonderful lawyers. I like to send letters." Just last week - three days before Makaeff made her court filing - a judge in Washington, D.C., overruled the objections of Trump's lawyers and ordered him to submit to a deposition in a suit he filed against one of the restaurateurs.

As Yahoo News noted in August, none of these cases would go away were Trump elected president. In 1997, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that presidents are not immune from civil litigation while in office, rejecting Bill Clinton's claim that he should not be subjected to a sexual harassment lawsuit brought by a former Arkansas state employee, Paula Jones."

Texas governor Abbott once chased Trump University from Lone Star State

.....The "university," which actually was a real-estate training package that awarded no accredited degrees, is now defunct. There are currently three active lawsuits against Trump and Trump University: one by the New York attorney general's office and two related California class actions.

The plaintiffs allege Trump and Trump University defrauded thousands of people throughout the country by selling real-estate training packages, ranging from $1,495 workshops to a "Gold Elite" program that cost up to $34,995, and came with "mentoring" - pledges of personal coaching on real-estate deals from Trump University instructors.

But the first major shot at Trump University came from Texas in January 2010. That's when Abbott's assistant attorney general in the Consumer Protection and Public Health Division, Rick Berlin, began a probe of whether the operation violated Texas' Deceptive Trade Practices Consumer Protection Act.

In a "civil investigative demand" mailed to university corporate offices at Trump's 40 Wall Street address, Abbott's office sought financial records; promotional and advertising material, such as that used to promote Trump University seminars in Texas; talking points and sales scripts used by seminar leaders to encourage people to purchase the paid programs; and names of all Texans who "purchased your workshop or mentoring program" from January 2008 to the present.

Rather than respond and turn over the requested documents, Trump University agreed to cease doing business in Texas.

Later that year, Trump University stopped operations altogether."...

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