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Trump: I Don’t Know Enough to Discuss, but Suicide of Former Clinton White House Aide ‘Very Fishy’

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Donald Trump once again injected a conspiracy theory into the 2016 campaign cycle, saying in an interview published Monday that he found the death of former Clinton White House aide to be “very fishy.”

The presumptive Republican nominee told The Washington Post last week that the suicide of Vincent Foster was a “very serious” issue and appeared dubious.

“He had intimate knowledge of what was going on,” Trump told the newspaper. “He knew everything that was going on and then all of a sudden he committed suicide.”

“I don’t bring [Foster] up because I don’t know enough to really discuss it. I will say there are people who continue to bring it up because they think it was absolutely a murder,” he added. “I don’t do that because I don’t think it’s fair.” (Read more from “Trump: I Don’t Know Enough to Discuss, but Suicide of Former Clinton White House Aide ‘Very Fishy'” HERE)

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Trump Cancels Plan to Debate ‘Second-Place Finisher’ Bernie Sanders

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After suggesting a debate between himself and Bernie Sanders earlier this week, GOP nominee Donald Trump has since backed away from the proposal, claiming it would be “inappropriate” to hold a debate with Sanders, the “second-place finisher.”

“As much as I want to debate Bernie Sanders — and it would be an easy payday — I will wait to debate the first-place finisher in the Democratic Party, probably Crooked Hillary Clinton, or whoever it may be,” said Trump in a statement.

On Wednesday, Trump suggested a willingness to debate Sanders during a guest appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, provided the proceeds went to charity.

“Yes, I am [willing to debate Sanders],” Trump said. “How much is he going to pay me? If he paid a nice sum toward a charity, I’d love to do that.”

Trump doubled down on his suggestion the following day, claiming that such a debate could generate millions towards charitable contributions.

“If we can raise for maybe women’s health issues or something — if we can raise $10 million or $15 million for charity, which would be a very appropriate amount. I understand the television business very well,” Trump said Thursday during a press conference.

In response, the Sanders campaign released a statement claiming they had received offers from at least two television networks expressing a desire to host the event.

“We look forward to a substantive debate that will contrast the very different visions that Sen. Sanders and Mr. Trump have for the future of our country,” read the statement.

Soon after, the Trump campaign released its own statement saying he was unwilling to participate, claiming the networks would “make a killing” with no guarantee they would donate to a charitable cause.

Sanders followed up by mocking Trump and telling reporters, “Well, I hope that he changes his mind again. Mr. Trump has been known to change his mind many times in a day.”

“Well Mr. Trump, what are you afraid of?” Sanders asked.

Charitable benefits aside, a Sanders/Trump debate provides little political advantage for Trump. He has guaranteed his place as the Republican nominee and has little need to debate anyone beyond his Democratic presidential opponent.

Sanders, on the other hand, is locked in a desperate fight with Hillary Clinton, and needs all the attention he can get. A nationally televised event would have helped him achieve that goal. (For more from the author of “Trump Cancels Plan to Debate ‘Second-Place Finisher’ Bernie Sanders” please click HERE)

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Rubio Makes Surprise Announcement About Republican Convention, Trump

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Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida — a former GOP presidential candidate and rival of Donald Trump — has confirmed he will be attending the Republican National Convention and said he will even speak on Trump’s behalf if asked to do so.

In an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Rubio said, “I want to be helpful. I don’t want to be harmful, because I don’t want Hillary Clinton to be president.” The Republican National Convention will be held in Cleveland in July.

Pointing out the fact that his policy ideas and Trump’s differ, Rubio added, “That said … I don’t want Hillary Clinton to be president. If there’s something I can do to help that from happening, and it’s helpful to the cause, I’d most certainly be honored to be considered for that.”

This is in direct contrast to a tweet from earlier this year in which Rubio, using the hashtag #NeverTrump, indicated he was joining with other Republicans who would not vote for Trump regardless of the circumstances.

Rubio also told Tapper that he would release his 167 delegates.

When asked if he would be interested in becoming Trump’s running mate, Rubio said he “wouldn’t be the right choice for Trump,” adding, “He won the nomination and he deserves to have a running mate that more fully embraces some of the things he stands for.”

Admitting to still having political aspirations, Rubio said it was a “safe assumption” that he would again run for political office, saying, “I can tell you I enjoy public service. If there’s an opportunity to serve again in a way that I feel passionate about, I’ll most certainly think I would explore it.” (For more from the author of “Rubio Makes Surprise Announcement About Republican Convention, Trump” please click HERE)

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Watch: Carson Says Trump Is Becoming More Spiritual

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After finally clinching the GOP presidential nomination, Donald Trump is getting more spiritual. That is, according to Ben Carson, a top surrogate and possible vice presidential pick for the businessman’s campaign.

“I know that he has prayed — I have eyewitness,” Carson said in a Facebook Live interview with The Hill Friday.

But when Carson, who is deeply Christian, was asked if he had ever personally witnessed Trump in prayer, he admitted he had only heard that Trump has started to pray more often.

“I have not seen him [pray], but I have eyewitnesses who have,” he said. “And I think he’s starting to move more in that direction. I think that’s a good thing.”

Carson said Trump is moving to a place in which he believes in a “greater power.” The retired neurosurgeon also said he told Trump last week that he believes “God is using him.” (Read more from “Carson Says Trump Is Becoming More Spiritual” HERE)

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Trump Reaches Delegate Number to Clinch GOP Nomination

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Donald Trump has reached the number of delegates needed to clinch the GOP presidential nomination, securing his status as the presumptive Republican nominee and avoiding a contested convention, according to a delegate count released Thursday by the Associated Press.

The AP reports that Trump was has reached 1,238 delegates, put over the 1,237 needed to win the nomination by a small number of the party’s unbound delegates who said they would support him at the convention. Trump will most likely add more delegates to his total before the convention in Cleveland, giving him a comfortable victory.

Trump’s achievement marks the completion of a primary campaign that has upended the political landscape and defied multiple predictions of failure from political commentators. It now sets the stage for a bitter fall campaign against likely Democratic rival Hillary Clinton . . .

Trump, a political neophyte who for years delivered caustic commentary on the state of the nation from the sidelines but had never run for office, fought off 16 other Republican contenders in an often ugly primary race.

Many on the right have been slow to warm to Trump, wary of his conservative bona fides and concerned about his crass personality. A so-called “Never Trump” movement, featuring high-profile conservatives, has frequently considered running a third-party candidate, but such efforts have so far not produced a candidate. (Read more from “Trump Reaches Delegate Number to Clinch GOP Nomination” HERE)

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Trump Courting Bernie Voters at the Expense of His Principles – Wait, Never Mind

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Why are Trump supporters working overtime to get conservatives to vote for Trump when he himself admits he’s really not that into us?

We keep hearing that it’s our job as conservatives to try to get Trump to come around to our side of things, you know, to work to get a seat at the table. Funny, we hear that stuff from people who call themselves conservatives who have already jumped on the Trump train. It’s almost like they left work early to go to the club, and we have to stay behind, finish the dishes and vacuum and reset the entire restaurant.

But hey, we’ve done the responsible thing many times, mostly because our conscience won’t allow us to do otherwise.

But in all the confusion, what with Trump supporters guilting, shaming, and prodding conservatives on Twitter and in the blogosphere, something should be made clear. This presidential race is not between a Republican and a Democrat, nor a conservative and a liberal; it is between two ends of the liberal spectrum. So far, conservatives are split on whether to vote for Trump—one side figures he’s better than Hillary, while the other is struggling with lending credence to his stated policies that are proven to destroy the free market and cause massive economic and diplomatic problems. This is serious stuff that merits real thought. Still though, Trump isn’t really trying to mend fences with conservatives, and that, along with all the abuse conservatives are taking online from his supporters, begs the question, “Why isn’t Trump trying to get our votes?”

Perhaps because Donald Trump is a very different kind of Republican (just ask him), and one would think at least part of the hesitation toward voting for him would be that he is courting Bernie supporters.

Not that it’s a bad thing in itself to court Bernie supporters, but Trump isn’t trying to sell them on any Republican-centric messaging—he is trying to capture them by parroting Bernie. In fact, he told MSNBC, “Bernie Sanders has a message that’s interesting. I’m going to be taking a lot of the things Bernie said and using them.” And so he has.

Last night, Trump had a rally in New Mexico where he talked about Bernie supporters and Bernie himself a lot. As if he has the utmost respect for him, Trump said that Bernie was getting the short end of the stick—just like he himself did—that the system was rigged against him and poor Bernie. The difference is Trump beat the system, and Bernie can’t make good deals. Trump said that he is getting 40 percent of the Bernie supporters, too. For about a month, Trump has been talking a lot about Bernie, including that Bernie is being denied the nomination because he’s telling the truth.

According to People Magazine, 20 percent of Sanders voters will vote Trump, Nate Silver expects they will go to Clinton or sit out, and has numbers that only 15% will vote Trump. Some Democratic strategists believe the Berners will become Trumpers, some think it’ll never happen, and some are pushing to vote for Trump because he’s the empty vessel they can fill up with progressive groupthink.

So knowing that Trump reads all this stuff, it’s clear he believes that the more he offers them a spot, the more Berners will be by his side in November.

Think about this: Bernie is an avowed socialist and Trump and he overlap on trade. Trump has already “pivoted” on raising the minimum wage, and rejected the Citizen’s United case; in fact, the far-left MSNBC made the point that he is wrong on everything except that notorious freedom of speech case, that hinged on banning speech.

The thing is, I’m not sure there is enough Republican identity left for most Republicans who’ve jumped on the train to know why all that would be bad. It’s gotten to the point that nothing he says matters anymore—which used to be why we all marveled at how his supporters weren’t using their heads—but apparently that brain-drain is more catchy than the Zika virus.

It’s bad that Trump seems to want to replace conservative voters with Bernie supporters, because that would mean he will be out there promising socialism to get votes. And it also means, if you have already endorsed the Donald, then you have bought the ticket to ride the socialism rail car where everyone is promised everything and nobody learns anything, as they get nearer and nearer to Utopia which, for some reason, always looks like Siberia. That way, the mindlessness of socialism is reinforced within the Republican Party rather than rebuked.

Yet this relationship between conservatives and the Republican Party is over-the-top dysfunctional. For me, I find myself shaking my head over how great the party could be if it just did what it says it’ll do, champion conservative governance and stand up to the Democrats. But then, when reality hits, I know they’ll never do that… so why do I dream?

It’s bad enough that the same philosophy that founded America can’t seem to get decent treatment by a group of people who claim they can make America great, maybe even better than ever before, as Trump said last night. But it’s worse to know that there is a massive number of people who believe a president is their ruler, and not the other way around, and that the Trump train to Utopia doesn’t want or need conservative influence.

Trump is actively pursuing unity with Paul Ryan (who is far-left on amnesty), the tech industry, GOP insiders, the GOP elite, and Bernie supporters. While his SCOTUS list was supposed to be the reason conservatives would flock to him, the problem that he has abused fellow Republicans won’t go away until he himself buries it. Then there is the fact that much of his record suggests pathological deceit…

While there remains little faith among conservatives in the direction of the Republican Party in the first place, for Trump to want to take it in the direction it is already going without apology isn’t surprising when you consider human nature. But if the destination is America, the train is heading in the opposite direction. Those that climb aboard now when it is unclear where the train is headed are doing so for the wrong reasons, fear being at the top of the list. But they should not feel fear, but grief instead, grief for the sorry mess that was made of things. (For more from the author of “Trump Courting Bernie Voters at the Expense of His Principles – Wait, Never Mind” please click HERE)

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Kasich Makes Announcement About Trump Endorsement

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If Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump wants Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s endorsement, the presumptive GOP nominee will have to make some changes.

“Think of it as a merger of two companies,” Kasich said in an interview Tuesday with Ohio reporters. “If the values are not somewhat similar, if the culture is not somewhat similar, it’s pretty hard to do a merger.”

Kasich, who in the past has said he may never get to the point where he would back Trump, later elaborated, noting his dislike for the way Trump will “run people into the ditch.”

“Unless I see a fundamental change in that approach, it’s really hard for me to do a merger,” he said. “If he changes, that’s a whole new ballgame. But if the cultures don’t change, mergers aren’t possible.”

During the interview session, Kasich, who suspended his presidential campaign after the Indiana primary, contrasted his approach with that of Trump, saying the billionaire made Americans out as victims without offering solutions.

“It’s easier to consider yourself a victim than it is to stand against the wind, particularly when you have people telling you it’s not your fault,” Kasich said. “And it wasn’t their fault. But when you create a scapegoat situation – ‘Well, the reason why you don’t have something is because someone else does’ – that is a message at this point in time that is more effective than, ‘Hey, we can work our way through this.’”

Kasich said he will write a book on his campaign experiences and use it to share his optimistic message of where the nation should go.

“It’s my message, and I don’t really think so much about how it fits into the Republican Party,” Kasich said. “I think people intuitively know that message is correct. But there’s a tug-of-war going on, I believe, in the country right now between people who are legitimately upset for a variety of reasons. Their concerns, fears, insecurities have to be acknowledged. The question is, do you stand against the wind and make the best out of what you have in life? Or do you go and become a victim?” (For more from the author of “Kasich Makes Announcement About Trump Endorsement” please click HERE)

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Trump Slams Hillary Clinton for Not ‘Protecting Women’ in Video Featuring Voices of Bill’s Sex-Assault and Rape Accusers

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By David Martosko. Donald Trump’s latest effort to saddle Hillary Clinton with her husband’s sexual indiscretions hit Instagram like a bomb on Monday.

‘Is Hillary really protecting women?’ Trump tweeted, along with a link to a short video featuring the voices of two of Bill’s sexual-assault accusers, Juanita Broaddrick and Kathleen Willey.

The 15-second video also includes a reference to Clinton’s former White House intern paramour Monica Lewinsky, in the form of a stogie clenched between the former president’s teeth.

Independent Counsel Ken Star wrote in his bombshell report on the Clinton impeachment saga that the then-president sexually pleasured Lewinsky, then in her early twenties, with a cigar.

Broaddrick accused Clinton of raping her in a hotel room when he was the attorney general of Arkansas. Willey has charged that he groped and fondled her against her will in the Oval Office. (Read more from “Trump Slams Hillary Clinton for Not ‘Protecting Women’ in Video Featuring Voices of Bill’s Sex-Assault and Rape Accusers” HERE)

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Leftist Salon: Donald Trump Is Going to Win; This Is Why Hillary Clinton Can’t Defeat What Trump Represents

By Anis Shivani. The neofascist reaction, the force behind Trump, has come about because of the extreme disembeddedness of the economy from social relations. The neoliberal economy has become pure abstraction; as has the market, as has the state, there is no reality to any of these things the way we have classically understood them. Americans, like people everywhere rising up against neoliberal globalization (in Britain, for example, this takes the form of Brexit, or exit from the European Union), want a return of social relations, or embeddedness, to the economy.

The Trump alliance desires to remake the world in their own image, just as the class representing neoliberal globalization has insisted on doing so. The difference couldn’t be starker. Capitalism today is placeless, locationless, nameless, faceless, while Trump is talking about hauling corporations back to where they belong, in their home countries, fix them in place by means of rewards and retribution, like one handles a recalcitrant child.

Trump is a businessman, while Mitt Romney was a businessman too, yet I predict victory for the former while the latter obviously lost miserably. What is the difference? While Trump “builds” things (literal buildings), in places like Manhattan and Atlantic City, places one can recognize and identify with, and while Trump’s entire life has been orchestrated around building luxury and ostentatiousness, again things one can tangibly grasp and hold on to (the Trump steaks!), Romney is the personification of a placeless corporation, making his quarter billion dollars from consulting, i.e., representing economic abstraction at its purest, serving as a high priest of the transnational capitalist class.(Read more from “Donald Trump Is Going to Win: This Is Why Hillary Clinton Can’t Defeat What Trump Represents” HERE)

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Trump Needs a Contract With Conservatives

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Donald Trump’s impressive list of potential Supreme Court nominees was a very smart move at a pivotal time. It came amid news of the Little Sisters’ ongoing battle not to be compelled by Caesar to fund abortion drugs, and amid Barack Obama’s bathroom edict thrust upon every school in America—as our President of Fundamental Transformation stoically promises to slay the world’s new great scourge: “transphobia.” Our fearless commander-in-chief knows he cannot wage this just war alone. The crusade must be carried forth by left-wing nature-redefiners poised throughout the courts. A President Hillary Clinton would duly pick up the torch, inserting still more morally insane judicial activists to advance the cultural revolution. Trump’s list came the week following his meeting with Paul Ryan, which surely was an impetus.

So, kudos to Team Trump. But the judges list needs to be merely the start. I here suggest that The Donald go further. I recommend that he and his team create a literal Contract with Conservatives, taking a page from Newt Gingrich’s brilliant Contract with America in 1994. Then, Newt pledged a list of popular common-sense conservative initiatives that he vowed a Republican Congress would vote on during Bill Clinton’s presidency. My thinking of Newt right now is partly precipitated by suggestions—including by The Donald’s top male cheerleader, Sean Hannity—that the former House speaker join Trump as a running mate. Newt might want to talk with Trump about the potency of the contract concept. The idea should resonate with Trump, being a businessman whose business is contracts, and as the namesake of the Art of the Deal.

What would this contract include? It needs to underscore 10 or 12 defining issues by which conservatives need reassurance before doing the unpalatable if not unthinkable in pulling the lever for Donald Trump.

Topping the list must be the guarantee to nominate only conservative judges, which is the paramount concern to conservatives holding their nose to vote less for Donald Trump than against Hillary Clinton. I talk to these conservatives constantly. For many, the only reason they will vote for Trump is to try to save America from unchecked activists inventing Constitutional rights and redefining the country and culture from the bench.

Really, liberals, you have helped enable Donald Trump with eight awful years of Barack Obama and the prospect of eight more with Hillary Clinton. Barack’s bathroom edict, endorsed by longtime abortion-fanatic and newfound “LGBTQ” warrior-queen Hillary Clinton, merely serves to advance Trump’s presidential prospects. My word to Obama and gang: You people are not only ideologically ridiculous but politically oblivious. Barack’s public bathroom obsession repulses the electorate about as much as Donald Trump’s public behavior does. Obama’s toilet fiat is so politically idiotic that it makes me wonder if the current Democratic president is secretly working with The Donald to defeat Madame Hillary. Nice job, liberals. You don’t like the Trump monster you’ve helped build, but every day you enliven it more.

One “NeverTrump” conservative emailed me yesterday saying he might now vote for The Donald. What changed his mind? The left’s bathroom follies combined with Trump’s list of conservative judges.

I digress. My point is that point one of a Trump Contract with Conservatives needs to be about restoring sanity to a nation-culture gone mad by restoring rationally thinking human beings to the federal courts.

Beyond judges, we could easily come up with a dozen other issues for a Trump Contract with Conservatives, ranging from a direct pledge to repeal Obamacare to promises to cut federal income taxes (Trump is already reneging on this one), to defund Planned Parenthood, to eliminate the Department of Education and Common Core, to abolish the IRS, to increase military funding. Trump must also somehow vow not to aid and abet the left’s fanatical efforts to redefine human nature, from marriage to gender. This is key, because Donald Trump, despite all the hype about him being politically incorrect, has long been a cultural liberal of New York values, whose only “political incorrectness” is actually mere brashness and rudeness and crudeness. The New York cultural liberal needs to promise to resist the bathroom battlers and left’s lieutenants of gender madness. His comments on the North Carolina situation a few weeks ago were not reassuring.

The Contract with Conservatives might even go so far as to include actual names of people that a President Trump would place in crucial posts from the Department of Defense and State Department to the National Security Council and Treasury. That hasn’t been done before, but neither has (in my recollection) a pre-presidential list of potential Supreme Court nominees. It would be unprecedented, but The Donald himself is unprecedented.

Team Trump should start now behind the scenes quietly working with leading conservatives to devise a list to announce at the Cleveland convention. Tap Newt Gingrich. Newt does know conservatism, which is vital to a Republican presidential nominee who can’t spell conservatism. The value of releasing such a list in Cleveland would be immense. It would also give The Donald coherent talking points to corral him, rather than him bloviating with his usual litany of platitudes from a podium.

Key caveat: Would a President Donald Trump abide by this contract? That’s not certain. Trump is a man of (at best) new principles and (at worst) no principles. He boasts of how he can change on a dime. His ability to flip-flop could be unsurpassed in the annals of presidential history. Nonetheless, he is a businessman and deal-maker who has some devotion to the weight of contracts. Maybe a contract, done with great fanfare, could hold him accountable to a degree (it’s better than nothing).

To be sure, such a Contract with Conservatives will not mollify all conservatives. Many of us remain convinced that Donald Trump is fundamentally unfit and unsuited for the most significant office in the world — temperamentally, emotionally, intellectually, ideologically, even morally. I have seen enough over the past year. Watching Donald Trump’s astonishing antics and policy ignorance has told me everything I need to know. He has exhibited enormous character instability and psychological flaws. His childish behavior on the campaign trail does not merit the votes of serious adults. Whatever coaching he gets now on how to behave, and in devising whatever deals to better pretend to look conservative, none of it should convince us he’s something he’s not. Nonetheless, if Trump is looking for a way to appeal to a larger swath of conservatives who dread the radical left’s (i.e., today’s Democratic Party) further transformation of America into a cultural hellhole where nuns and bakers and photographers and florists and marriage clerks and wedding caterers and churches and companies and schools are forced, sued, fined, closed, threatened, picketed, boycotted, jailed, debased, demonized, dehumanized, and destroyed often simply for asking for conscience exemptions in a country that has a 220-year-old First Amendment enshrining religious freedom, then Trump should seek ways to attract them. To be sure, I still find it highly unlikely to impossible that Donald Trump can win in November. A man of such overwhelmingly historical negatives with vast segments of voters really doesn’t stand much of a chance, even as polls tighten and even as Barack Obama does his surest to have adult men share restrooms with our daughters. I am sympathetic to George Will’s plea that conservatives should work to defeat Donald Trump rather than help him because of the enormous brand damage he could cause to the party of Lincoln and Reagan. However, if Trump is looking for a way to try to reassure conservative voters in his bid to stop another post-modern Democrat from further torching our civil liberties, a Contract with Conservatives might be a good option. For the good of my country and culture, I would like some guarantee from Trump of some semblance of conservatism and resistance to the left-wing juggernaut should he seize the Oval Office for the next four years.

Now is the time, when The Donald needs conservatives because his goal is to win, win, win (i.e., when the goal is himself), for conservatives to try to hold him accountable to their movement that he’s hijacking for his own purposes. (For more from the author of “Trump Needs a Contract With Conservatives” please click HERE)

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Trump Drops ‘Rape’ Bombshell on Bill Clinton

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Donald Trump may have out-Trumped his own reputation for politically incorrect, tough talk when he called out former President Bill Clinton Wednesday night during an hour-long interview with Sean Hannity. . .

The Hannity interview came on the heels of a weekend New York Times story on Trump’s treatment of women titled “Crossing the Line: How Donald Trump Behaved With Women in Private.”

According to the Times, “more than 50 interviews were conducted over the course of six weeks, … [with] dozens of women who had worked with or for Mr. Trump over the past four decades, in the worlds of real estate, modeling and pageants; women who had dated him or interacted with him socially; and women and men who had closely observed his conduct since his adolescence.”

[Hannity then asked Trump,] “I looked at the New York Times. Are they going to interview Juanita Broaddrick? Are they going to interview Paula Jones? Are they going to interview Kathleen Willey?”

[Hannity continued,] “In one case, it’s about exposure. In another case, it’s about groping and fondling and touching against a woman’s will.” [Trump then interrupted,] “And rape.” (Read more from “Trump Drops ‘Rape’ Bombshell on Bill Clinton” HERE)

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