Posted on 04/22/2016 1:10:18 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Since the debate over what he said yesterday is still raging, it’s only fair that you get to hear his latest comment about it. Skip to 8:35 of the clip below from last night’s interview on Trump TV.
His response to Hannity’s question about North Carolina is a dodge but it’s a dodge with a conservative pedigree. If you’re a Republican who’s been put on the spot about a hot-button social issue, you can’t go wrong saying, “Leave it to the states.” Even righties who disagree with you on the merits will tip their caps at your nod to federalism. In fact, this is Cruz’s go-to answer whenever he’s asked about gay marriage or marijuana. He’s against legalizing either, he’ll tell you, which pleases social conservatives, but he’s also not looking to use federal power to impose his personal preference, which pleases everyone else. Trump’s answer is trying to create the same dynamic — with a twist. Instead of reassuring non-Republicans that he’ll defer to their local preference, as Cruz does when he gives the federalism answer, Trump’s reassuring his own party. He’s telling the same evangelicals who helped him crush Cruz across the south that he’ll pose no obstacle to them on this issue as president, which is an … interesting position for a soon-to-be party nominee to find himself in with respect to his own base.
There’s one other key difference: Cruz opts for a federalist answer on gay marriage and marijuana because each of those issues has been pushed by social conservatives at the federal level. Marijuana is regulated by the federal government, of course, and SSM opponents have spent years calling for a Federal Marriage Amendment. Cruz, in choosing federalism, is answering a bona fide question of whether the states or the feds should govern on those topics. There’s no similar state/federal dispute over North Carolina’s law. No one’s calling for a Federal Transgender Bathroom Amendment. Trump seizes on federalism, in other words, not because there’s a legitimate question of which government should address this subject but because he understands that federalism is a crowd-pleasing way to dodge when you don’t know what to say. It’s another small example of him not knowing how to speak conservative fluently.
I wouldn’t call it a flip-flop, though, as some Trump critics have on social media. This is a flip-flop:
Trump went from fiscal hawk to dove in 3 weeks. Obama would agree with much of this: https://t.co/SXKiPa4lRo pic.twitter.com/s0RMW3VT2Z
— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) April 22, 2016
That’s from an interview with Fortune Magazine, which pressed him on why he could possibly believe he might pay off America’s $19 trillion debt in 10 years. “I didn’t say 10 years,” Trump replied. Er, three weeks ago he said he could pay it off in eight years, and that he’d do it mainly by renegotiating America’s trade deals, which wouldn’t remotely approach $2-3 trillion per year in surpluses. How you reconcile that with what he said to Fortune, I have no idea. Maybe that’s what Paul Manafort meant by Trump playing a “part” earlier and shifting to a more sober approach now. The old Trump would lie, lie, lie right to your face about his superheroic powers of debt-slashing. The new, serious Trump will be more realistic, “realistic” in this case meaning somehow spending more on the military and on infrastructure and not laying a finger on entitlement spending (as Trump has promised before) and yet somehow still reducing the debt in the process. Old Trump, in other words, was more like Superman whereas new Trump is more like Batman — wildly implausible, if not quite outright impossible.
Here’s the Hannity interview, followed by Cruz trying to capitalize on Manafort’s comments to the RNC.
So what do you want, a friggin' award? We all knew he would backtrack on this issue because he blew it in the first place (I'm a Trump supporter).
Yes it does. He screwed up, there’s no excuse for this and he should be arrested and water boarded for bathroom dabbling without a license and proper ID.
He had to.
If for no other reasons...his own grandkids.
It’s not against you personally, please don’t be offend.
Trump has taken up some good issues but he’s lacking on others. This is not that tv show of his where he was hiring people, this time he’s the one applying for the job. This time he works for us! Well I find him lacking in a few areas and I don’t mind saying so. Even if he gets the job I will remind him who he works for. Should he become president he’s not the “boss” the but an “employee” and in a public servant. I will expect him to act as such.
This means I will expect him to try to make abortion illegal in America. Overturn gay marriage. Protect guns laws. This with all the other stuff he has promised.
I hope Ivanka and the rest of the family smacked Dad for opening his big mouth on this subject.
You nailed it.
What a windmill that Donald Trump is.
He cannot even stand for something like decency.
I do hope he gets elected and or Cruz but I think these guys are scared of their shadows at times just to get along with the destructive democrats.
RE: Ted Cruz has, in his usual dishonest way, cut some ads attacking Trump
Why is it dishonest?
Simply tell us you don;t like what he’s doing. But if he references what Trump DID say on it ( which of course he modified later ), that’s not dishonesty. That’s taking advantage of a gaffe.
I'm voting for Trump. He's not perfect but he understands some larger issues that are afflicting America.
And I want to know what HIS position is.
Does he think that anyone should be able to use whatever bathroom, dressing room, shower depending on how one feels at a particular time? That is what is being pushed.
Look, there is a difference between “This is my preference” and “This is the Constitutional solution”.
I don’t care what Trump does in his office. If he perversely wants men in his child’s bathroom, then he can suffer the consequences.
The answer he SHOULD have given is “this is an issue for North Carolina. Period. Let’s build a wall.”
Mr. Trump has been walking so many of his statements back that he may actually end up going backwards across the American border into Mexico before he can have the wall built!
Trump could shoot someone on the street and his supporters wouldn’t care. Oh wait....that’s what HE SAID.
Don’t look into his eyes........
What are you talking about?
Great post!
The bathroom deal is a big fat nothing burger. The exception thing in the platform is worrisome, but it more realistically reflects the standard GOP position which is basically a cowardly do nothing but lie to the voters position about something they plan to mostly ignore except when campaigning and asking for donations. Jim Robinson
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3422979/posts?page=1376#1376
You know how when you are in sales and the customer asks a question to which you don’t know the answer. You say, “there are several ways to do that, let me check on the best way and get back to you.”
i see “let the states decide” as Trumps new go to answer unless they wont do it his way.
I’m not fooled. No real difference on social issues from HRC. Couldn’t vote for either of them.
“It’s just that clear. If you are a man, use the men’s room. Done.”
No Trannie in their right mind would use the men’s bathroom dressed as a woman. They’d have the crap beat out of them, literally. As to a Tranny going into a woman’s bathroom, all the women that might be in there, along with their children, would beat a fast track out of there as soon as they would spot the Tranny. So, as Trump said, leave it alone, it’s not really a problem.
And Cruz claims “young children alone in bathrooms with Trannies”. No parent in their right mind would leave a young child go into a public bathroom by themselves ever in the first place. When I was young, there were many fathers and monthers, including my own mother, that took their young children, male or female into opposite gender bathrooms if necessary in order to watch over them and so that they WOULDN’T be alone in the bathroom. Parents do this all the time to this very day.
Does anyone get upset that the parents go into opposite sex bathrooms to assist and protect their young children? No they don’t. Trump is right. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Cruz, as usual, raises a red herring and lies to gain political points. He sucks.
Thank you for referencing that article SeekAndFind. As usual, please note that the following critique is directed at the article and not at you.
Patriots, please bear in mind that the idea of “leaving it up to the states” is not a matter of opinion, but constitutional law.
In other words, even if everybody supported the idea of transgender restrooms, it remains that, since the states have never amended the Constitution to expressly protect so-called LGBT “rights,” the states are free to make laws which discriminate on the basis of sex (except where voting laws are concerned).
Whether or not a state allows transgender restrooms is ultimately up to a given state’s legal majority voters, and their wallets, just as constitutionally unprotected gay “marriage” is.
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