Republican Election 2016 - Donald Trump Megathread [OFFICIAL]

[Noxx79]

So for over a week Trump has been claiming that he saw a video (that can't be found) that showed a transfer of money to the Iranians. His own campaign said the video didn't exist and he watched another video, yet he went on to continue to make the claim. This morning he admitted he was lying.

Trump Admits He Didn't See Cash Arrive In Iran After Repeating False Claim

Donald Trump on Friday morning admitted that he did not see footage of American cash being delivered to Iran after claiming at least twice that he saw video of the cash being unloaded off a plane.



Trump claimed at a rally on Wednesday that he saw a video of the $400 million payment the United States made to Iran as it arrived in Iran. However, the Washington Post noted that the Republican nominee was likely referring to footage of American hostages arriving in Geneva after being freed from Iran. Fox News played the video from Geneva while reporting on the $400 million payment this week, the Post noted.

When asked by the Post, the Trump campaign said that the candidate was referring to the video from Geneva that played on news broadcasts this week. The Post reported the Trump campaign's statement early Thursday morning.

But before admitting his mistake himself, Trump repeated the claim at rally on Thursday.

“It was interesting because a tape was made, you saw that? With the airplane coming in?” Trump asked at a rally in Maine, according to the Huffington Post. “Nice plane. And the airplane coming and the money coming off, I guess. That was given to us, has to be, by the Iranians."

“And you know why the tape was given to us? Because they want to embarrass our country, and they want to embarrass our president,” he added.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewir...ake-video-iran

Is fire raining down outside? Did Trump actually admit to a mistake? SOMEONE's definitely had a word or two with him lol.

[Pangean]

Interesting endorsement of Clinton today by ex-CIA head. He spoke directly to Trump being played by Putin. "In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation."

I Ran the C.I.A. Now I’m Endorsing Hillary Clinton.

During a 33-year career at the Central Intelligence Agency, I served presidents of both parties — three Republicans and three Democrats. I was at President George W. Bush’s side when we were attacked on Sept. 11; as deputy director of the agency, I was with President Obama when we killed Osama bin Laden in 2011.

I am neither a registered Democrat nor a registered Republican. In my 40 years of voting, I have pulled the lever for candidates of both parties. As a government official, I have always been silent about my preference for president.

No longer. On Nov. 8, I will vote for Hillary Clinton. Between now and then, I will do everything I can to ensure that she is elected as our 45th president.

Two strongly held beliefs have brought me to this decision. First, Mrs. Clinton is highly qualified to be commander in chief. I trust she will deliver on the most important duty of a president — keeping our nation safe. Second, Donald J. Trump is not only unqualified for the job, but he may well pose a threat to our national security.

I spent four years working with Mrs. Clinton when she was secretary of state, most often in the White House Situation Room. In these critically important meetings, I found her to be prepared, detail-oriented, thoughtful, inquisitive and willing to change her mind if presented with a compelling argument.

I also saw the secretary’s commitment to our nation’s security; her belief that America is an exceptional nation that must lead in the world for the country to remain secure and prosperous; her understanding that diplomacy can be effective only if the country is perceived as willing and able to use force if necessary; and, most important, her capacity to make the most difficult decision of all — whether to put young American women and men in harm’s way.

Mrs. Clinton was an early advocate of the raid that brought Bin Laden to justice, in opposition to some of her most important colleagues on the National Security Council. During the early debates about how we should respond to the Syrian civil war, she was a strong proponent of a more aggressive approach, one that might have prevented the Islamic State from gaining a foothold in Syria.

I never saw her bring politics into the Situation Room. In fact, I saw the opposite. When some wanted to delay the Bin Laden raid by one day because the White House Correspondents Dinner might be disrupted, she said, “Screw the White House Correspondents Dinner.”

In sharp contrast to Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Trump has no experience on national security. Even more important, the character traits he has exhibited during the primary season suggest he would be a poor, even dangerous, commander in chief.

These traits include his obvious need for self-aggrandizement, his overreaction to perceived slights, his tendency to make decisions based on intuition, his refusal to change his views based on new information, his routine carelessness with the facts, his unwillingness to listen to others and his lack of respect for the rule of law.

The dangers that flow from Mr. Trump’s character are not just risks that would emerge if he became president. It is already damaging our national security.

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was a career intelligence officer, trained to identify vulnerabilities in an individual and to exploit them. That is exactly what he did early in the primaries. Mr. Putin played upon Mr. Trump’s vulnerabilities by complimenting him. He responded just as Mr. Putin had calculated.

Mr. Putin is a great leader, Mr. Trump says, ignoring that he has killed and jailed journalists and political opponents, has invaded two of his neighbors and is driving his economy to ruin. Mr. Trump has also taken policy positions consistent with Russian, not American, interests — endorsing Russian espionage against the United States, supporting Russia’s annexation of Crimea and giving a green light to a possible Russian invasion of the Baltic States.

In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.

Mr. Trump has also undermined security with his call for barring Muslims from entering the country. This position, which so clearly contradicts the foundational values of our nation, plays into the hands of the jihadist narrative that our fight against terrorism is a war between religions.

In fact, many Muslim Americans play critical roles in protecting our country, including the man, whom I cannot identify, who ran the C.I.A.’s Counterterrorism Center for nearly a decade and who I believe is most responsible for keeping America safe since the Sept. 11 attacks.

My training as an intelligence officer taught me to call it as I see it. This is what I did for the C.I.A. This is what I am doing now. Our nation will be much safer with Hillary Clinton as president.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/05/op...ft-region&_r=0

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Is fire raining down outside? Did Trump actually admit to a mistake? SOMEONE's definitely had a word or two with him lol.

Well he was getting hit really hard on this and it was really focused on mocking him for claiming he watched something that doesn't exist. He had to stop the blood loss. And let's be clear he didn't write that Tweet anyway. I suspect they took his phone away from him and he will only get it back when he proves he can behave.

[Grogo]

Also new numbers out in polls and Trump is losing badly. Like really bad. Also new numbers came out showing:

The Economy Has Added More Than 1 Million New Jobs So Far This Year, 255,000 in July alone.

Two new polls put Donald Trump further back than Mitt Romney ever was

New Poll Has Trump at 9 Percent Among Young Voters

Clinton surges to big 15-point lead in McClatchy-Marist poll

For the first time in 128 years, the Harvard Republican Club won’t endorse its party’s candidate

Clinton would have 92 percent chance of winning if vote were today, FiveThirtyEight says

Trump is now polling at a lower Percent of African American votes than McCain or Romney

Also, because of Trump, the Republicans are going to eventually lose a lot of seats in other elections. Trump is the best thing to happen to the USA in years, he is like a gift to Democrats.

[Spectral]

This Khan situation is a load of tripe to me anyway. I can't get over how politicized and over the top it is.

That being said, welcome to politics. They'll parade anyone out to get votes and utilize peoples' own grief to their advantage. Then some wonder why I find politicians inherently disgusting.

Whoever settled on putting the Khans out to speak at the DNC deserves a nice reward. This was obvious catnip for culture war from the start. There's nothing the Democrat base loves more than a Hero of Diversity and it was obvious that Trump would have poor impulse control and would say something stupid about it.

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How about his mostly blonde FoxNews-stylized who.... errr... I mean surrogates, who have been nothing but souless, intellectually and morally bankrupt propaganda spewers.

Want to see some people who don't get to have a conservative political career on the other side of this?

Here's the Legion of Losers best and brightest.

I remain amused that the nominally Really Serious Republicans got beaten handily by Trump's Idiots and are still smug in their sense of superiority as their party is in tatters. It's an impressive lack of introspection.

[Rudol Von Stroheim]

Whoever settled on putting the Khans out to speak at the DNC deserves a nice reward. This was obvious catnip for culture war from the start. There's nothing the Democrat base loves more than a Hero of Diversity and it was obvious that Trump would have poor impulse control and would say something stupid about it.

Indeed. Both sides are idiots but one had something to lose by engaging with this nonsense.

[alexw]

Whoever settled on putting the Khans out to speak at the DNC deserves a nice reward. This was obvious catnip for culture war from the start. There's nothing the Democrat base loves more than a Hero of Diversity and it was obvious that Trump would have poor impulse control and would say something stupid about it.

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I remain amused that the nominally Really Serious Republicans got beaten handily by Trump's Idiots and are still smug in their sense of superiority as their party is in tatters. It's an impressive lack of introspection.

I don't think the democrats expected it to play out as it did. They just did the lets have a go a Trump with a diverse candidate who also ticks the patriot box, which isn't really anything unusual for the democrats to do (just like republicans pull out their own war hero's). It's Trump that took what was a by the numbers democratic play and turned it into a fiasco for himself. It's all on him.

But thankfully its happening now and its getting republican voters to seriously question Trump's judgement. Its been fairly obvious to many that Trump is unfit for the office, and has deep personality flaws that would make him a dangerous man to have such power despite all the checks and balances in the system. But because of their hatred for Hillary and the democrats republican voters willfully blinded themselves to these flaws. Well they are waking up.

[Rudol Von Stroheim]

I remain amused that the nominally Really Serious Republicans got beaten handily by Trump's Idiots and are still smug in their sense of superiority as their party is in tatters. It's an impressive lack of introspection.

Why do you think people have issues taking them seriously to begin with? They never really controlled anything from the start, they just like to think they did and still do. They would've had more influence in being humbled and trying to appeal to order and greater, higher ideals. Nope. Instead you get nothing but vitriol. If anyone is to blame for this current situation, it is the Republican leadership. They've made some serious blunders in the last decade but won't own up to them while crying about everyone else.

[Spectral]

I don't think the democrats expected it to play out as it did. They just did the lets have a go a Trump with a diverse candidate who also ticks the patriot box, which isn't really anything unusual for the democrats to do (just like republicans pull out their own war hero's). It's Trump that took what was a by the numbers democratic play and turned it into a fiasco for himself. It's all on him.

But thankfully its happening now and its getting republican voters to seriously question Trump's judgement. Its been fairly obvious to many that Trump is unfit for the office, and has deep personality flaws that would make him a dangerous man to have such power despite all the checks and balances in the system. But because of their hatred for Hillary and the democrats republican voters willfully blinded themselves to these flaws. Well they are waking up.

I don't know what the percentage chances of it happening are, but I think there's a non-zero chance that we'll see some sort of mass exodus from Trump to Johnson by potty-trained Republicans. While Johnson obviously isn't their ideal candidate either (if he were, he'd just be the nominee), he's a former governor that doesn't tend to say absolutely insane shit on public television every other day or so. I will not be shocked if we wind up with an election result that's something like HRC 46, Trump 32, Johnson 18, Stein 4.

The level of lack of self control required to decide to get in a completely unwinnable feud with Khans is impressive. As you point out, this isn't new at all for Trump, but it's yet another stark highlight of it.

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Why do you think people have issues taking them seriously to begin with? They never really controlled anything from the start, they just like to think they did and still do. They would've had more influence in being humbled and trying to appeal to order and greater, higher ideals. Nope. Instead you get nothing but vitriol. If anyone is to blame for this current situation, it is the Republican leadership. They've made some serious blunders in the last decade but won't own up to them while crying about everyone else.

The spitting contempt that elite Republicans express for the lower-class voters in their party is really striking. I'm sure HRC doesn't actually like poor Democrats all that much, but she has enough sense in her head to not openly call them stupid if they choose to not to vote for her in a primary.

[Felya]

Why do you think people have issues taking them seriously to begin with? They never really controlled anything from the start, they just like to think they did and still do. They would've had more influence in being humbled and trying to appeal to order and greater, higher ideals. Nope. Instead you get nothing but vitriol. If anyone is to blame for this current situation, it is the Republican leadership. They've made some serious blunders in the last decade but won't own up to them while crying about everyone else.

But, every single vote for Trump proves them right. If their response wasn't to seek higher ideals and to reply with vitriol, Trump winning the popular vote would be just the second in over 25 years, showing it should be. Voting Trump is not sending a message that low ideals and vitriol doesn't work, but more like Paris Hilton 2020...

[Rudol Von Stroheim]

The spitting contempt that elite Republicans express for the lower-class voters in their party is really striking. I'm sure HRC doesn't actually like poor Democrats all that much, but she has enough sense in her head to not openly call them stupid if they choose to not to vote for her in a primary.

Good chance I'll end up swinging Johnson at the end of the day.

Guess I'll be chugging down moonshine per my bet. I made a bit of a gamble with a friend that Trump would win the national election but this was before his meltdown over Khan and the "Ransom" controversy. He's such a dumb ass it's hard to look past, it's almost gotten downright insulting. Unless he has a complete 180 shift in his behavior people won't be able to get beyond it no matter how much they dislike Hillary.

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But, every single vote for Trump proves them right. If their response wasn't to seek higher ideals and to reply with vitriol, Trump winning the popular vote would be just the second in over 25 years, showing it should be. Voting Trump is not sending a message that low ideals and vitriol doesn't work, but more like Paris Hilton 2020...

No, it's a vote against the establishment. Nothing else. Don't look any deeper or you'll legitimately lose yourself.

The Republican leadership likes to browbeat and talk a big game while having provided dismal results within the last decade. Their own constituents are beyond sick of them.

[Felya]

I don't think the democrats expected it to play out as it did. They just did the lets have a go a Trump with a diverse candidate who also ticks the patriot box, which isn't really anything unusual for the democrats to do (just like republicans pull out their own war hero's). It's Trump that took what was a by the numbers democratic play and turned it into a fiasco for himself. It's all on him.

The scarier part is that Putin did it as well. Trump has so little tact, that his explanation of his relationship with Putin, actually explains Putin without realizing it. The whole 'he gave me a compliment, so we are in a relationship' was exactly the point. Putin during the G8 read Bush perfectly with his 'at least we didn't start any wars', while actively fighting in Chechnya. Bush had not rebuttal and set there with his goofy grin on his face. With Trump, Putin, just like everyone else, can see his glaring flaw of self indulgence and narcissism. He knows Trump can be swayed by compliments and uses it to his full advantage.

[Pangean]

LOL. The GOP really love their candidate, they really do.

Insiders to Trump: Drop out
'I’d rather take our chances with nearly anyone else than continue with this certain loser who will likely cost the Senate and much more,' said a New Hampshire Republican.


Amid widespread chatter that Donald Trump could drop out of the presidential race before Election Day, Republican insiders in key battleground states have a message for The Donald: Get out.

That’s according to The POLITICO Caucus — a panel of activists, strategists and operatives in 11 swing states. The majority of GOP insiders, 70 percent, said they want Trump to drop out of the race and be replaced by another Republican candidate — with many citing Trump’s drag on Republicans in down-ballot races. But those insiders still think it’s a long-shot Trump would actually end his campaign and be replaced by another GOP candidate.

“I’d rather take our chances with nearly anyone else than continue with this certain loser who will likely cost the Senate and much more,” said a New Hampshire Republican — who, like all respondents, completed the survey anonymously.

“The effect Trump is having on down-ballot races has the potential to be devastating in November,” added a Florida Republican. “His negative image among Hispanics, women and independents is something that could be devastating to Republicans. Trump’s divisive rhetoric to the Hispanic community at large has the potential to be devastating for years to come.”

Trump has given no indication that he’s considering quitting, and his campaign insists his perseverance is one of his best attributes. But two network reports recently suggested senior GOP leaders were eyeing how that process would work, just in case.

A Trump exit from the race after he’s been formally nominated would trigger a rarely used vacancy rule in the national Republican Party’s rulebook. That rule empowers the Republican National Committee — a 168-member panel that includes three GOP leaders from every state and territory — to select a replacement. The RNC is also authorized to reconvene the national convention, which would be all but logistically impossible.

Read the rest at http://www.politico.com/story/2016/0...#ixzz4GTKfZrWt

[Felya]

No, it's a vote against the establishment. Nothing else. Don't look any deeper or you'll legitimately lose yourself.

I prefer to think, so pardon me if I choose to look deeper. Like Trump being an oligarch, funding the establishment for decades and rubbing elbows with the very establishment he supposed to be the antithesis of. If you look deeper, him being the anti-establishment vote, makes no sense what so ever. He amplifies everything wrong with the establishment...

The Republican leadership likes to browbeat and talk a big game while having provided dismal results within the last decade. Their own constituents are beyond sick of them.

You mean like a lesser version of Trump? His whole complain is browbeating, there is nothing else to it. You don't heal a wound by making it bigger...

[Spectral]

Well, with sources like "a New Hampshire Republican" and "a Florida Republican", that certainly seems like a pretty legit story. These boldly anonymous Republicans are awfully persuasive.

[alexw]

Good chance I'll end up swinging Johnson at the end of the day.

Guess I'll be chugging down moonshine per my bet. I made a bit of a gamble with a friend that Trump would win the national election but this was before his meltdown over Khan and the "Ransom" controversy. He's such a dumb ass it's hard to look past, it's almost gotten downright insulting. Unless he has a complete 180 shift in his behavior people won't be able to get beyond it no matter how much they dislike Hillary.

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No, it's a vote against the establishment. Nothing else. Don't look any deeper or you'll legitimately lose yourself.

The Republican leadership likes to browbeat and talk a big game while having provided dismal results within the last decade. Their own constituents are beyond sick of them.

The republicans made a deal with the devil. They became a party that catered exclusively to the wishes of the economic elites (the democrats traveled quite a ways down this path too) and one that didn't give a damn about the middle class or working class. But there isn't many votes in that so they used culture war issues as their dividing line between the democrats as their base sank ever deeper into economic despair. Now that base is as mad as hell.

[Rudol Von Stroheim]

I prefer to think, so pardon me if I choose to look deeper. Like Trump being an oligarch, funding the establishment for decades and rubbing elbows with the very establishment he supposed to be the antithesis of. If you look deeper, him being the anti-establishment vote, makes no sense what so ever. He amplifies everything wrong with the establishment...



You mean like a lesser version of Trump? His whole complain is browbeating, there is nothing else to it. You don't heal a wound by making it bigger...

I don't think you get my point. Republican voters see the GOP leadership freaking out over Trump in Primaries. Voters like that. They want to see them squirm and cringe further. GOP leadership makes this desire even more intense by continuously fighting and working against Trump from on up within their crystal towers. End result? You get Trump. When your own voter base is more concerned about sticking a needle in your eye than electing a good candidate, you've got a serious problem as a party.

It really doesn't get much more complicated than that. People tend to over analyze this stuff, myself included, but I legitimately think in this instance... that's what it all comes down to. Sure not for every last voter but for the majority?

[AeneasBK]

Apparently Trump is now saying he would have prevented 9/11.

[Mafic]

People don't like establishment Republicans. So establishment Republicans taking a stance against Trump isn't going to change anything.

[zenkai]

Apparently Trump is now saying he would have prevented 9/11.

Yeah, hindsight is always 20/20.

[Toxigen]

Apparently Trump is now saying he would have prevented 9/11.

Would have been easy to do...considering we knew it was going to happen.

Jet fuel doesn't melt steel beams.