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Donald Trump has tapped Chris Christie to lead his transition team, which would prepare the political neophyte turned presumptive GOP nominee for the White House if he wins in the general election. “Governor Christie is an extremely knowledgeable and loyal person with the tools and resources to put together an unparalleled Transition Team, one that will be prepared to take over the White House when we win in November,” Trump said in a quote released Monday morning as part of a campaign statement.

With Ted Cruz out of the race and John Kasich set to announce he’s suspending his campaign later today, presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump is wasting no time in moving forward on building out his campaign team, amassing a team of advisers and beginning to review potential vice presidential running mates. To help him with the latter, Trump told the New York Times that Ben Carson will serve on a selection committee to find his running mate.

Having essentially locked up the Republican presidential nomination, Donald Trump says he's about to set up a committee to find a potential running mates -- and he's reportedly wants Dr. Ben Carson, his former nomination rival-turned-campaign surrogate, to help conduct the search... Putting the retired neurosurgeon on the veep search committee, however, could generate some buzz among Trump supporters: a recent public-opinion survey found that voters want Trump to pick Carson as his running mate. But Trump on Wednesday intimated that he may have someone else in mind: "I think probably I would like to go with somebody with great...

Donald Trump Campaign Manager Corey Lewandowski, who was falsely accused of assault and battery by attention-seeking hoaxer Michelle Fields in March, will head up Donald Trump’s VP search. The Hill reported: "Donald Trump’s controversial campaign manager will helm the presumptive GOP nominee’s running mate search, the Washington Post reported Tuesday. Corey Lewandowski will lead the campaign’s vetting of prospective vice presidential candidates, a process the Post says will “ramp up” shortly. Ben Carson, who ended his own presidential bid earlier this year, has confirmed previously that he will be on the search committee as well. Carson has so far muddied...

Ben Carson is still advising Donald Trump as his campaign ramps up its search and vetting process for a running mate, a Trump campaign source said Tuesday, despite a top aide to the retired neurosurgeon claiming Carson had stepped away from the process. Williams said while Carson "doesn't want a position" or a "title," he would continue to advise Trump on vice presidential picks as needed. "He's an adviser. I just think he's in a better position where he's not pigeonholed," Williams said, though Carson had never been given a formal title to account for his role in the Trump...

Libertarian Party's Ron Paul Sends "Dear Frank" Letter from the Libertarian Party News, March/April 1987 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Following is the text of a letter sent to Frank Fahrenkopf, chairman of the Republican National Committee, by Ron Paul, former member of Congress from Texas and now a member of the Libertarian Party. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- As a lifelong Republican, it saddens me to have to write this letter. My parents believed in the Republican Party and its free enterprise philosophy, and that's the way I was brought up. At age 21, in 1956, I cast my first vote for Ike and the entire Republican...

Ronald Reagan would be familiar with some of the challenges facing Donald Trump lately. Imagine an establishment-busting presidential candidate rolling up the primaries but polling 20 points behind the presumptive Democratic nominee. The controversial Republican front-runner is considered so radical that the party establishment eyes a brokered convention, perhaps to nominate a failed candidate from the previous election. Sound familiar? Welcome to March 1980. In retrospect, Ronald Reagan’s presidency seems inevitable, but the prevailing wisdom in the Republican Party 36 years ago was that he was leading the party to certain defeat. Going into the 1980 race, some Republican leaders...

How panicked should we be about the rise of Donald Trump? A professor at Harvard, Danielle Allen, recently published a widely shared op-ed piece in the Washington Post likening his rise to that of Hitler... ...such Hitler hype has happened before, and been unwarranted. Steven Hayward, author of “The Age of Reagan,” recalls the rhetoric: Democratic Rep. William Clay of Missouri charged that Reagan was “trying to replace the Bill of Rights with fascist precepts lifted verbatim from Mein Kampf.”

With the pubic distracted by the FBI battling Apple for an iPhone backdoor, President Obama is secretly working to trash President Ronald Reagan’s restrictions on the number of federal agencies that can spy on Americans and others. At a secret meeting of the United States National Security Council on Feb 25, President Obama approved a draft 21-page memo relaxing a Cold War Reagan-era directive called Executive Order 12333 that restricted the number of government agencies that can access, without court order or Presidential approval, the contents of phone calls, emails and data the U.S. National Security Agency vacuums up from...

December 28, 1983 REAGAN ASSERTS BLAME IS HIS IN MARINE SECURITY FAILURE REAGAN ASSERTS BLAME IS HIS IN MARINE SECURITY FAILURE; OPPOSES PUNISHING OFFICERS By JOEL BRINKLEY, Special to the New York Times Editor's Note Appended WASHINGTON, Dec. 27— President Reagan said today that he accepted full blame for the lack of security measures that permitted the terrorist bombing of the Marine headquarters in Beirut. He said he does not believe any of the Marine commanders ought to be punished. ''If there is to be blame,'' Mr. Reagan said, ''it properly rests here in this office and with this...

This is a year of important anniversaries for Ronald Reagan and his legacy. It is the tenth anniversary of his passing; it has been 25 years since he left the White House and 50 years since his groundbreaking speech on behalf of Barry Goldwater in 1964. It is also 30 years since his monumental reelection of 1984, ratifying the Reagan Revolution. The election of 1980 would have been meaningless, a detour in history, without 1984 legitimizing it. The Reagan Library, Eureka College, and the Reagan Ranch have taken various steps to commemorate these important anniversaries. And the effort to name...

<p>Earlier this evening at NewsBusters, Tim Graham noted that the Washington Post gave space, in an item entitled "Reagan Historians to Decry 'Ahistorical Caricature' as Racist in 'The Butler' Movie," to refute the false portrayal of the Gipper in that film.</p>

Four Ronald Reagan historians have slammed the portrayal of former President Reagan in the movie "The Butler," saying that the 40th president's "attitudes toward race" as shown in the movie are inaccurate. They begin the article, "What 'The Butler' gets wrong about Ronald Reagan and race," published in The Washington Post, by recounting instances in Reagan's life when he decried racism and took a stand for the African-American community. While serving as president of the Screen Actors Guild, for example, "Ronald Reagan called upon the entertainment industry to provide greater employment for black actors." That position was controversial at the...

The quislings who want to run a stooge like Mitt Romney Third Party to elect Hillary Clinton are selfish enemies of our freedom. Nevertheless, what they want to do will fail and they will be disgraced. In 1980 the Republican establishment hated Ronald Reagan every bit as much as they hate Donald Trump today. We didn’t know much about this because there was little reliable coverage by a media which, then as now, hated all Republicans. They ignored most of what went on except anything they could be used to hurt Republicans. For those who are unaware of the history...

Trying to decide which is the bigger story here: 1. Mika Brzezinski speculating that Liz Cheney asked Ed Rollins, as a favor, to call her a "bored housewife"; or 2. Joe Scarborough saying that whenever he imitates Zbigniew Brzezinski's accent, Brzezinski beefs that he's making him "sound like a rabbi." You be the judge. Both happened on today's Morning Joe. Liz Cheney has taken some heat for suggesting that sitting Republican Senator Enzi is old and confused. Mika seemed to be suggesting that having Rollins take a sexist shot at her would instantly transform Cheney from aggressor into victim. There...

Rush is right! And the GOP-e along with the Morrises, the George Wills, etc, failed in their predictions. Morris admitted he had egg on his face, but I did not see George Will admit this. Maybe he did, but I didn't see it. Are the now obsolete? Are the Krauthammers, the O'Reillys, the Vannitys, Rollins, etc also obsolete? Is Vannity still going to continue having the same ol same ol on his show? And what about the other shows on FOX News? Are they going to continue having RINOS/CINO guests/hosts on their shows? Mitt Romney got fewer votes than McCain...

Fox News anchor Shep Smith, with the help of GOP veteran Ed Rollins, gave a brutal review of Newt Gingrich’s exit from the Republican presidential race – sure to exacerbate the feud between Gingrich and the conservative cable news network. Says Rollins: “He epitomhttpized the sore loser. This is a tough game, but he epitomized the sore loser.” Said Smith, harkening back to the beginning of Gingrich’s campaign: “I thought then he was delusional, and now I’m sure.” See for yourself, via the Daily Caller:

As I reported yesterday, at least a few former Reagan administration officials say that, in his campaign comments, Newt Gingrich has rewritten the history of his relationship with Ronald Reagan. Today, a number of counterbalancing voices say those officials — and not Gingrich – are the ones who are shading the facts. On Fox News, for example, Ed Rollins, Ronald Reagan’s national campaign manager, described Gingrich as one of “the most important players and most loyal to Ronald Reagan”:

Ed Rollins says the establishment will come down on Gingrich and call him unelectable. "You will see a Republican establishment will say he cannot win and drag down the house and they will go to war on him," Rollins told FOX News. Rollins on Romney: "He never was a conservative til he was running for the presidency four years ago. He never governed as a -- when he ran against Kennedy he wasn't a conservative, when he won the governorship he wasn't a conservative. He's trying to convince people now and it's just not sellable to conservatives."

Republican strategist Ed Rollins on Monday downplayed the latest surge in rumors that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will jump into the race for the Republican presidential nomination, and instead argued in favor of another possible candidate. Christie “ought to stay running New Jersey,” Rollins said on Fox News’ “Kilmeade and Friends” radio show. “If I were advising him, I would tell him not to think about [a presidential bid],” Rollins said. “I can’t imagine Gov. Christie spending the next four or five months in the winters of Iowa, traipsing to the places he’s got to go in order to...