CNN Pundits Dump On Trump During Pre-Debate Roundtable Discussion
On Monday’s Situation Room, a roundtable panel was convened to talk about the leading GOP candidates as they head into the second CNN Republican debate. On the panel were S.E. Cupp, Dan Pfeiffer, and Ana Navarro. Since it was a discussion about the current front-runners and what they needed to do to win the debate or help their campaign, it didn’t take long for the conversation to turn to Donald Trump.
Dan Pfeiffer began with a statement meant to just get the topic off by saying that though he is always behind the other candidates when it comes to knowledge of politics and foreign policy, it really doesn’t matter how Donald Trump performs. His poll numbers remain the same no matter what happens during the debates. His reasoning for this was that Mr. Trump’s four worst days of the campaign were after each previous debate. He didn’t state it openly, but he basically used the same attack line that Mike Huckabee has been using recently: Trump just doesn’t have the experience on issues with foreign policy.
After a few moments where everyone agreed that Mr. Trump was a bad debater who always proclaims himself the winner after each event, they finally started to get into the meat of the discussion. Ana Navarro finally brought up one of the biggest complaints that many people from both the right and left have. Donald Trump is a liar and says a lot of things that are just made up.
Of course, if you are going to call someone else a liar you shouldn’t say something that isn’t true while making the statement. Ms. Navarro prefaced her statement by saying that people had just stopped fact-checking his statements. That is inaccurate as PolitiFact is still doing its job in that department. PolitiFact is still calling him out on his falsehoods, unlike many of the other GOP candidates and politicians. They will likely have another “fact” or two to check after the last debate.
Finally, the panel began discussing why the other campaigns haven’t really called him out on his freedom with the truth. S.E. Cupp gave the best reason when she said that when you take on Donald Trump, you take on his supporters as well. That is certainly why Ted Cruz hasn’t openly criticized the frontrunner. It isn’t because he or any of the other candidates who don’t raise their voice against his statements agree with him, it is because each of them are hoping that Trump will eventually fall by the wayside and they will be able to pick up his supporters.
Sadly, that really is the crux of the problem with other Republican candidates not calling him out for his divisive rhetoric or his lies. In the end, that may also be their curse. If you are too afraid to stand up to a bully in your own party, how are Americans really going to see you when the general election finally rolls around? The fact that so many other candidates have endorsed Mr. Trump’s insane rhetoric and ideas only compounds the matter. You are all cowards, and I hope that the American people reject you and the rest of your party for allowing these sorts of shenanigans to continue for this long.
Below is video of the segment:
