I am surprised this has not been posted. Anyone willing to defend Trump here? Or is this the deathblow to his hopes of getting the nomination? I know I think he deserves a beating....not verbal either....... http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/07/18/trump-slams-mccain-for-being-captured-in-vietnam/
I sure hope so. The dude is an idiot. I'm so disappointed that he's placed so highly in polls reported on the news. The guy is a major douche that has no knowledge on anything that could lead this country.
Hey hey now we don't support beatings here even though he does deserve one we will not do it. This Jack@ss Will get his is int time.
His base is largely comprised of crazy people who dislike McCain anyway. Maybe it's wishful thinking, but I sure hope that this isn't it for him. You know he has it in him to say or do something even stupider. It makes for great theatre, in a race otherwise bereft of entertaining candidates.
He was always finished. Trump consolidated all the votes of the 2nd tier candidates like Cruz - basically, he's just more crazy than all the other crazies and appeals to that group. But he has a very low ceiling. With 10 candidates, his 15%-20% puts him in 1st. But with 3 candidates, he would still be at 15-20%. He's going to be a huge annoyance to the other candidates in the debates, but that's about it. I don't think he's assembled any infrastructure in Iowa, which suggests this is more a publicity campaign than a "I'm trying to win a nomination" campaign anyway.
The irony is that I see the logic in what Trump was saying about McCain. Trump was defining a war hero as someone who puts their life in danger in the heat of the moment and goes down fighting. All the soldiers are hero but he was reserving "war hero" for a very special select group of soldiers who went above and beyond. What was foolish is to call McCain out - it's just not classy. Still the backlash - a lot of that is people afraid of Trump. If you take what he says out of context, yes it makes him seem like a bad dude. But very few people will actually look at what he meant. There's a lot about Trump I strongly dislike - and while this was a PR disaster, I actually see his point.
You can't really defend what Trump said. McCain was shot down and his plane crashed. He was captured and tortured and not provided medical care. He was offered opportunities to leave the POW camp early and refused. He has received over a half dozen major military commendations. Please explain what more you would have liked for him to do? I do not especially like John McCain. I find him arrogant and out of touch with the modern world and ethically flexible. However he has experienced things that you and I cannot and will not ever come close to appreciating. If Donald Trump, who NEVER was a serious candidate wants to question that, then he has nothing to back it up.
Except that's not at all what Trump meant or implied. In fact, he said exactly the opposite: https://sharylattkisson.com/fact-check-the-washington-post-on-donald-trump-and-john-mccain/ 2. When a panelist characterized McCain as a “war hero,” the Post is accurate in reporting that Trump initially said McCain is “not a war hero.” But then, Trump immediately modified his statement saying– four times– that McCain is a war hero: “He is a war hero.” “He’s a war hero because he was captured.” “He’s a war hero, because he was captured.” “I believe, perhaps, he’s a war hero. But right now, he’s said some very bad things about a lot of people.”
He was finished before he began.....but his McCain comments were just pants on head r****ded and he should have been run out of town on a rail.
I think he's stubborn in ways that make him a great Senator, but blind him into thinking a half-term governor of a bottom-five who didn't read newspapers was more likely to shoulder the next generation of a major party than become a reality show urchin.
Fivethirtyeight actually did a piece dispelling the myth that trump is drawing exclusively from the very fringe of the tes party. In fact, he polls about the same in all segments. It appears to be mostly about celebrity right now for him. Should go away
He's tracking about where Herman Cain did in 2012. Same party, same pattern. Proof all publicity is good publicity up to a point.
I dated a girl in high school who's dad said the exact same thing about McCain in the 2000 primaries. Dude was quintessential "tea party" way before the extreme right ever had a brand name. The amazing thing is that the dad was ex-military. Basically said he respected McCain for surviving a POW camp that long, but he never would be considered a hero if he weren't such a ****ty pilot in the first place. So, honestly, I kinda expect this to resonate with a fair amount of people already supporting Trump.
UPDATE: OK to call Mexican immigrants rapist and drug runners. NOT OK to be mean to John McCain. Perhaps the McCain comments weren't the "beginning to the end" boys...