Republicans in Washington are caving to the Democrats on every major issue, real estate magnate and potential 2016 GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump tells Breitbart News in an exclusive interview.
Trump says if he were president of the United States and leader of the Republican Party, he’d end this kind of horrendous negotiating by Republicans.
“It would be a lot different than it is now,” Trump said.
I’m a conservative Republican, but I’m in many respects a lot more disappointed in the Republicans than I am in the Democrats. Democrats want what they want, and Republicans cave at every corner. Nobody understands why. They have the cards and they don’t use them. So many different things are allowed to go by whether it’s the vote from the other night [the doc fix bill] or many of the different votes over the last few years.
Over the course of this week, Republicans in Washington have caved on everything from the Iran deal legislation from Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) to the national debt with the “doc fix” bill to gay marriage to trade promotion authority. Just a few short months into 2015, Republicans have caved on everything from abortion to Obamacare to immigration and more. And they’re currently looking for a way to cave on the Loretta Lynch nomination for Attorney General.
“The Republicans fold at every corner and nobody really understands why,” Trump said.
That would not happen with me as president, that I can tell you. For one thing, they have to negotiate differently. They have the cards. They have the purse strings, but they don’t use them. They have tremendous power and they’re not using the power. Obamacare has been fully funded, the vote the other night as to increasing the limits [on the national debt] without negotiation just automatically agreed to. Every single thing is just agreed to. They fund everything and they fund it unilaterally. It’s incredible to me that they do this, and it’s incredible to me that the Democrats get away with it.
That’s why Trump is seriously considering a run for the presidency, as he launched an exploratory committee late last month and has staffed up big time in early primary states.
“We’re very far down the line [in a decision on whether to run for president] and we have staff in New Hampshire, Iowa and South Carolina—great people, great staffs,” Trump said. “And we are going to be making the decision in the not too distant future, in June or July.”
Trump said that if he does run, he will be running to win.
“I only run to win,” Trump said.
That’s one of the things we’re looking at strongly. We’ve had great poll results when they put me in a poll, and that’s despite the fact that everyone says I’m not running. They say why would I give up this wonderful life that I have, why would anyone do that in order to run? But I love the country even more so and we are going to make a decision. If I run, we are going to make this country great again. If I run and if I win I will make this country great again.
Several recent polls show Trump could be among the contenders.
A Monmouth University national poll released in early April shows Trump at 7 percent among Republicans and Republican leaning voters. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush led the field with 13 percent, but Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker are tied with 11 percent apiece. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee gets 9 percent in the Monmouth poll, Dr. Ben Carson ties Trump with 7 percent, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) pulls 6 percent, and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry tie for 5 percent. That poll was conducted from March 30 to April 2, 2015, with a sample size of 1,005 adults, but this part of the release was based on a sample size of 355 Republicans and those who lean Republican. The sample size has a margin of error of 5.2 percent.
An NH1 Poll conducted by Reach Communications released last week has Trump at 8 percent—or fifth place—in New Hampshire. Walker leads the field there with 23 percent, Bush comes in second with 17 percent, Paul is third with 15 percent and Cruz is fourth with 9 percent. That puts Trump ahead of Rubio and Carson in the all-important Granite State. They’re tied at 7 percent. Trump led Christie and Huckabee who are tied for 6 percent.
Part of Trump’s appeal is that he’s strong on immigration. Trump supports American workers over illegal aliens, unlike pretty much the entire rest of the field, and articulates the economic effects that open-borders immigration policies supported by candidates like Bush and Rubio would have on Americans. He even goes frequently after Bush by name, as he did again in this interview with Breitbart News.
“I’m very, very strong on securing the border with only legals coming in, not illegals coming in. I’m very, very strong on getting the bad ones out of this country and getting them out fast,” Trump said.
Because many of them, the people that have come in are gang members and worse. We’re getting a lot of bad. Mexico is not sending their finest and best, they are sending these which are just the opposite. So we’re getting a lot of very, very bad people coming into this country. Obviously, some of the people are wonderful but we’re getting a lot of very bad people—they got to get out and they got to get out fast.
The stance that Bush has is very, very weak on immigration. And the stance that a few of the others have is really not strong and not strong enough. We have to protect the border. We have to build a wall. And in addition to the wall, we have to have people manning the wall so nobody gets in. Nobody can build a wall like Trump can build a wall, I’ll tell you that.
Trump also hammered former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over her rocky 2016 presidential campaign rollout.
“I think it’s been very, very guarded. Nobody has seen anything like it,” Trump said of Clinton’s fledgling campaign.
No talk, no interviews, going to areas that are only friendly—very small groups of people, very small audiences and very risk averse. Eventually she is going to have go and mix it up. It will be very interesting to see if that can continue on for long. I would imagine it can’t, but it’s a very risk averse set of meetings she’s having—small audiences, all are vetted—and I don’t think you can continue going on like that if you’re going to run for president.
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