Thursday on Fox News Channel’s “The Kelly File,” National Review editor Rich Lowry rolled out his magazine’s effort to challenge Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump’s bid to be the eventual Republican nominee.
Lowry told host Megyn Kelly, who has had her own dust-ups with Trump, that their intent was to rally conservatives against Trump because they saw him as susceptible to special interests.
“One big takeaway from what we’re doing – it’s not the establishment necessarily opposing Donald Trump,” Lowry said. “You have a bunch of lobbyists on K Street right now hiding under their desk figuring out how they can deal with Trump or perhaps coopt him. And the point we’re making is perhaps conservatives who thing Donald Trump — whatever his virtues are doesn’t truly understand the ideas and principles that make this country great. It’s up to those conservatives to stand up and say, ‘No, sorry. We oppose this guy.’”
Kelly asked what the “theme” of the effort included, to which Lowry declared “ideas” and “principles.”
“There are a couple,” he replied. “Number one, if you truly are conservative, you believe in ideas and in principles. It’s not just attitudes. It’s not just who you dislike. It’s limited government. It’s the Constitution. It’s liberty. Those are the things that truly make this country special. And they are basically afterthoughts to Donald Trump. He almost never talks about them. And if you’re truly a conservative, you have a consistent record. We all change our minds on a few things every now and then when the facts change. But he has been on the other side on big hot-button defining issues like abortion, gun control, taxes and even immigration.”
“Ronald Reagan spent about 30 or 40 years marinating in conservative thought and advocating for conservative ideas,” Lowry added. “He just didn’t show up one day and say, ‘Hey, now I’m a conservative. Another problem with Trump is he seems to believe what this country needs is a really effective strong man to make the trains run on time when what we really need is the government to be cut down to size, restored to its rightful role and then focus on the important things, like the borders –“
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