How often do debate moderators threaten to run against the field of candidates they’re moderating?
Donald Trump has once again said that if Republican primary voters can’t pick a candidate he believes will beat President Obama, he’ll run for president himself.
Trump made the comment in an interview with TODAY’s Matt Lauer Monday while promoting his new book, “Time to Get Tough: Making America #1 Again,” out that same day.
If “the wrong candidate is nominated to run” and “it’s a candidate that’s not going to win and not very good,’’ Trump said he would “certainly think about running as an independent.’’ Despite dalliances with a possible presidential bid in the past, Trump said he has never seriously considered it until this year.
The editors of NR appear to be as incredulous as the rest of us:
We had hoped that after the brief and frivolous publicity stunt Trump branded as exploration of a presidential run, there would be no further occasion to rehearse the many ways in which his sometime association with the Republican party hurts the conservative cause. So we’ll keep it brief: Trump is a tax-hike-supporting, missile-defense-opposing, universal-health-care-advocating, eminent-domain abusing, Schumer-Weiner-Rangel-Reid-donating, long-time-pro-choice economic protectionist who in 2008 called George W. Bush “evil” and lauded president-elect Barack Obama as a potentially “great president” who would “lead by consensus.”
The Trump debate is a sideshow, and those who would be the Republican nominee for the presidency of the United States are, one and all, better than it.