GOP donors wrestle with possibility of Trump nomination

//thehill.com ^ | November 29, 2015, 07:00 am | Jonathan Swan

[GOPAreDemProgressives]

When asked who he would vote for if the presidential race comes down to Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the former mayor of Los Angeles and a longtime Republican establishment figure, Dick Riordan, says: "I would probably go find a deserted island."

"I think Hillary is disgusting," said Riordan, a wealthy investor who has exceeded $500,000 in political donations throughout his career.

"And I think Trump is crazy," Riordan added in a telephone interview Monday. Riordan is not alone. In conversations over the past month, GOP establishment donors have confided to The Hill that for the first time in recent memory, they find themselves contemplating not supporting a Republican nominee for president.

Most, however, still believe that Trump will flame out before they have to face that decision.

The subject of Trump came up at a recent Beverly Hills lunch hosted by former U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Rockwell Schnabel.

Seated around the table in the private dining room of the Hotel Bel-Air were several of the West Coast's most powerful Republican donors, including Ronald Spogli, the venture capitalist and former ambassador to Italy under President George W. Bush; his business partner Bradford Freeman; and Riordan.

A story that circulated after the lunch was that the donors engaged in a hypothetical question: "If it was Donald Trump running against Hillary Clinton, who would you vote for?"

One version has it that most of the Republicans at the table put their hands up for Clinton.

Schnabel disputes that account and said in a telephone interview Tuesday that it was just banter among friends and that he is confident that all the Republicans at the table would support the final GOP nominee for president, whomever that turns out to be.

Schnabel called back later on Tuesday afternoon to clarify what

[RC one]

These are the same SOBs insisting that Trump take a loyalty pledge.

[LeoWindhorse]

just get on board you namby pamby morons

we need a Mack Truck , a Tsunami of sanity and patriotism
to utter roll over all this Alinskyite Liberal progressive BS that has permeates this country and to flush it forever .

Bayonet !

[roadcat]

In conversations over the past month, GOP establishment donors have confided to The Hill that for the first time in recent memory, they find themselves contemplating not supporting a Republican nominee for president.

Look at what the nominees they supported every 4 years in recent memory. Losers all. So get out of the way and let us have a true conservative nominee, long overdue since Reagan won.

[albie]

The GOPe is always “reeling”, “grappling”, “wrestling” with the idea of a Trump presidency!! Just take your medicine ya bunch of gay-bo’s!

[GOPAreDemProgressives]

The SOB's toyed with the idea of supporting Hillary Clinton over Trump.

Proof... that the GOP is a cartel of thugs that are no better than Pelosi or Reid.

[CatOwner]

Doesn't this just play right into Trump's hands? He gets to say he's the ultimate DC outsider since most establishment politicians would be against him.

The one possible downside is if Trump and the GOP congressional candidates aren't working together, that may not bode well for keeping the Senate and/or keeping the large advantage in the House.

[SpaceBar]

What this tells me is that the GOP actually likes Obama. He baffles us with bs, brings home the bacon, and provides a convenient lightening rod to deflect from their own graft and corruption.

[RC one]

If they can’t own you, they don’t want you.

[Bob434]

what would be absolutely fantastic would be if Trump became president, and every time a whiny liberal started to mouth off and accuse him of something for him to say

“Look you whiny little snot- you sniveling little liberals had this country for 8 years now and you absolutely messed it up and now I’ve got to get this country back on track and fix all the crap your leader did and try to make this nation great again- to get back the respect we lost because of your whiny little group making a mockery of our freedoms strength and greatness. Now, get out of my way and let the big dogs do what you whelps couldn’t!”

[Bob434]

[[What this tells me is that the GOP actually likes Obama.]]

The GOP like liberals because liberals know how to steal out money and put it in the pockets of government officials and ilk- GOP decided a long time ago that they would let the liberals do the dirty work, while the GOP supported them by approving mandates laws etc and by not opposing them seriously on anything while making it look like they were opposing them

The GOP is just as lustful for our hard earned money as liberals are- and that is why it is now impossible to tell a GOP from a liberal anymore- That is why boenr and Mitch never seriously opposed dear leader on anything

[DesertRhino]

Nice to see the cockroaches flee when the light is turned on. This tells me we’ve never had a real candidate since Reagan.

[DesertRhino]

“that may not bode well for keeping the Senate and/or keeping the large advantage in the House.”

I almost cannot see that us having it has mattered anyway.

[sparklite2]

As many times as I have held my nose
and pulled the lever for the GOP,
it is telling that they will not
do the same for me.

[Yosemitest]

Trump Sees Muslims Celebrate


Jersey City 9/11 Celebration Report CBS ( 3:04 )
Sunday Sept. 16, 2001 CBS Report by Pablo Guzman on 9/11 Celebration in Jersey City

Northern New Jersey Draws Probers' Eyes
By Serge F. Kovaleski and Fredrick Kunkle September 18, 2001

The FBI investigation into the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon has led agents back to a familiar area: northern New Jersey.

It was there, in Jersey City, just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, that a Muslim cell plotted the 1993 bombing of the twin towers and sought to destroy other New York landmarks as part of an urban guerrilla war against the United States.

It is believed that 13 of those detained by federal authorities for questioning in its probe into the worst terrorist act in U.S. history are from northeastern New Jersey, some from the same Journal Square area where suspects in the 1993 bombing lived.

Teams of agents have also conducted myriad interviews and seized computer and paper records at apartment buildings, businesses, hotels and motels in at least 10 towns and cities in northern New Jersey -- from Weehawken to Wayne, and Fort Lee to Florham Park. Furthermore, FBI teams and state troopers have done the same at several flight training schools and charter businesses at small airports in the area, including the Morristown and Teeterboro airports.

At Morristown Municipal Airport, Tom O'Looney, president of Certified Flyers Inc., said investigators left him a 20-page FBI watch list containing the names of 300 people. Michael Glover, director of American Flyers at the Morristown airport, said authorities asked him about any foreign nationals who may have attended his flight school. But Glover said none were on his rolls.

Law enforcement officials said northeastern New Jersey could be potentially fertile ground as 4,000 FBI special agents search for accomplices, associates and ultimately further clues about last Tuesday's devastating terrorist strikes against symbols of American financial and military might.

In October 1995, Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, an Egyptian cleric who delivered fiery sermons at a run-down mosque in Jersey City, was convicted of directing the conspiracy to blow up the United Nations, an FBI building, and three bridges and tunnels linking New York and New Jersey. He was also convicted of being part of a plot to kill Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Sayyid Nosair of Jersey City and Cliffside Park was also charged in the 1990 killing of Rabbi Meir Kahane in Manhattan. The Kahane murder was the beginning of a series of militant acts by the Muslim cell that was encouraged by Abdel-Rahman, the group's spiritual leader.

One such act was the Feb. 26, 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which killed six people, injured more than 1,000 and inflicted $500 million worth of damage.

"The area in and around Jersey City has provided individuals in the past who were bent on terrorism. So I am sure that area is of great interest to investigators right now," said James K. Kallstrom, the former head of the FBI's New York office. "They are not knocking down any straw men at this point. I think now is the time when the broad spectrum of possibilities has to be looked at."

In Jersey City, an urban enclave of 240,055 people that is home to one of the largest Arab populations among U.S. cities, members of that Middle Eastern community said they are being unfairly targeted and misunderstood by the FBI.

"First of all, I think the people [convicted] of the bombing of the World Trade Center were innocent. . . . The Muslims are an easy way out, especially when you don't know who committed the act," said Essam Abouhamer, director of the Altawheed Islam Center. "The message of Islam is to be peaceful with yourself and others."

Hasam Ibrahim, 37, who came to the United States 16 years ago from Egypt and owns a limousine company in Jersey City, said he and others in similar circumstances moved here in search of better lives and are proud to be Americans.

"It is impossible," he said of suggestions that a terrorist cell in or around Jersey City may have helped plot the deadly attacks last week. "People here from the Middle East just want to work and have good lives. I love the United States. I eat in the United States. I earn money in the United States, and my children go to schools in the United States. A lot of people in this Arab community feel like me."

Investigators said at least two of the hijackers, Nawaq Al Hamzi and Salem Al Hamzi, are believed to have had addresses in Wayne and Fort Lee. They apparently rented a mail box in Fort Lee, at Mail Boxes Etc.

In Jersey City, within hours of two jetliners' plowing into the World Trade Center,
law enforcement authorities detained and questioned a number of people
who were allegedly seen celebrating the attacks and holding tailgate-style parties on rooftops
while they watched the devastation on the other side of the river.

Over the weekend, authorities raided a small apartment building in Jersey City to search an apartment rented by two men who were detained in Texas on Wednesday, on possible immigration violations. Mohammed Jaweed Azmath, 47, and Ayub Ali Khan, 51, both from India, were taken into custody Wednesday on an Amtrak train in Texas, carrying $5,000 in cash, hair dye and box cutter knives -- weapons said to have been used by the hijackers. During the raids in Jersey City, authorities detained a third man, Abdoul Salam Achou, 37, whose visa application allegedly expired on Sept. 1.

Investigators also detained three men in Elizabeth, N.J., who were carrying a large amount of cash and a one-way ticket to Syria. The three men, Ahmad Kilfat, 45, Mohammad Mahmoud Al Raqqad, 37, and Nicholas Makrakis, 27, were in a red Pontiac that matched an FBI description of a vehicle connected with the attacks.

Yemina Barbosa, 46, who lives across the street from the three-story apartment house on Tulip Street in Passaic, N.J. -- a mostly black and Latino neighborhood where Kilfat and Al Raqqad were thought to live -- said expensive, "sporty" cars would often park in front of the house.

Neighbors said a car that they believed belongs to the two men was towed tonight from in front of the apartment house, after the vehicle was examined by a bomb squad.

How do you think Trump was commuting to and from the Trump World Tower, a 72-story residential tower across from the United Nations Headquarters ?

Do you really think he was in a limo going to and from all his hotels ?

[SteveSCH]

What a bunch of babies. I’m not 100% sold on the Donald(between him and Cruz...) but COME ON!

From the same people who forced McLame and Mittens?

The same people who wanted Jeb!

Get lost you bunch of creeps!

[taxcontrol]

For several of the recent elections, the GOPe have demanded that conservatives hold their nose and vote for their candidate. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, they dont like it so much.

[lewislynn]

The one possible downside is if Trump and the GOP congressional candidates aren't working together

He'll have them eating out of his hand.

[RC one]

and many of us have made the same empty threats but ultimately held our noses and voted for the Republican nominee. We’ll have to watch them closely and see what happens.

[aquila48]

Must be frustrating for the “donors” to not be able to buy a politician.