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Trump leaves the conservative establishment arrogant and unmoored By Joe Scarborough April 2 at 11:06 PM When members of Manhattan’s media elite come to Mark Halperin’s home for dinner, Halperin likes to ask his guests whether they have spent more time in Paris or Staten Island. More often than not, his guests select the destination that does not offer regular ferry service from Battery Park. Halperin’s dinner quiz provides a glimpse into what conservatives have long mocked as the cloistered existence of liberal elites who report on a nation they don’t understand. Republican critics have long complained that these media...

The Washington Post opinion writer Greg Sargent calls GOP frontrunner Donald Trump a “nightmare nominee,” arguing that “not even white men” like Trump.

If Donald Trump secures the Republican presidential nomination, he would start the general election campaign as the least-popular candidate to represent either party in modern times. Three-quarters of women view him unfavorably. So do nearly two-thirds of independents, 80 percent of young adults, 85 percent of Hispanics and nearly half of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. Those findings, tallied from Washington Post-ABC News polling, fuel Trump’s overall 67 percent unfavorable rating — making Trump more disliked than any major-party nominee in the 32 years the survey has been tracking candidates.

The battery case Michelle Fields filed against Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski is the result of a con job, a police report reveals. We can now report that Fields conspired with Washington Post reporter Ben Terris to frame Lewandowski. Michelle Fields approaches Trump, requiring Secret Service agents to step in. [see image at link] Michelle Fields Corey Lewandowski assault Corey Lewandowski brushes Fields. [gif at link] Here’s another video angle of Lewandowski and Fields touching one another. [video at link] Lewandowski has chat with Ben Terris, tells Terris to call him. There’s in action after Lewandowski brushes Fields. You can...

Washington Post (and others) sitting on video. We've indy confirm video looks bad, showing multiple hotel encounters According to person who worked for Rubio campaign. Cruz video shows *multiple* hotel encounters with non-spouse females. Just entry & exits

If Donald Trump becomes the Republican nominee, one of the main reasons will be that many in the conservative movement found him acceptable. And one of the main reasons that many conservatives are finding Trump acceptable is that the most influential political talk radio host in history, Rush Limbaugh, has provided his blessing. Not his endorsement. Limbaugh takes pains to preserve neutrality between Trump and Ted Cruz, whom he describes as the obvious choice “if conservatism is the dominating factor in how you vote.” But Limbaugh has also consistently defended Trump as a legitimate choice for those whose dominating factor...

Among many other topics, respondents were asked whether they were struggling economically — or whether they were comfortable and moving up. They were also asked whether they thought it was more of a problem that African-Americans and Latinos are "losing out because of preferences for whites" or whether whites are "losing out because of preferences for blacks and Hispanics." The survey asked this question in order to gauge the sentiment that racial and ethnic groups don't just feel they are facing difficulties in general, but that those losses are being caused by other group's gains.

There is no evidence that Ted Cruz attacked Donald Trump's wife. In a normal election year, this statement would be relatively uncontroversial. After all, it's true. Yes, there was an ad that ran in Utah, suggesting that because she had posed for provocative modeling photos, she was somehow unfit to be first lady. But, no, that ad was not from the Cruz campaign. It was from the Make America Awesome super PAC, a group that raises and spends money without input from any candidate, including Cruz. How do I know that? Well, I know that if such a political action...

Oh, dear. Most of last week, American voters watched as two of the nation's Republican presidential contenders accused each other of insulting the other's wife and engaging in underhanded and inappropriate campaign tactics. And on Sunday, the start of a new week, the accusations continued to fly in both directions. On various Sunday morning political talk shows, both Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz spoke about a National Enquirer story claiming that Cruz has engaged in extramarital affairs and allegations that both men had inappropriately launched or been involved in attacks on the other's spouse.

The notion that the media could control a presidential campaign was always bogus. News organizations enjoy the ratings and readership delivered by Donald Trump — just ask CBS boss Les Moonves — but they haven’t made him the Republican presidential front-runner. Voters who ignore or even embrace his venomous brand of politics and the many negative stories about him have done that. If it were up to the press, John Kasich would be the GOP nominee. But whatever control the media did have feels lost after a week that began with a distasteful, super PAC-sponsored ad campaign featuring a mostly...

As the father of three daughters, I reserved the right to interview their dates. . . For the next few hours, she would be affected by his ability to drive a car, avoid the bad crowds and stay sober. I wanted to know if he could do it. I wanted to know if he was decent. This was my word: “decent.” Would he treat my daughter with kindness and respect? Could he be trusted to bring her home on time? In his language, actions and decisions, would he be a decent guy? Decency mattered to me as a dad, and...

Donald Trump Is Not Beating Hillary Clinton In The Polls, No Matter How Many Times He Says It By Philip Bump March 24 Donald Trump legitimately does not care about what polls actually say; he cares about what he can say about the polls. He likes to talk about polls because polls are usually pretty good for him, at least since last July when he stormed into the lead in the Republican field. Polls serve as validation for his dominance, and so he talks about them as a slightly more subtle way of calling himself a winner. Last September, he...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) blamed “Donald Trump and his henchmen” for planting a National Enquirer story that accused him of extramarital affairs. Vehemently denying the story as “garbage” and “complete and utter lies,” “It became clear as the campaign went on that Donald was a whole lot of sizzle without any substance,” said Cruz. “When he’s scared, when he’s losing, his first and natural resort is to go to sleaze and to go to slime.” Friday on CNN, a Trump supporter, Boston Herald columnist and radio host Adriana Cohen accused a former Cruz staffer, Amanda Carpenter, of being one of...

This morning, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu experienced something that American politicians have become all too familiar with — being overshadowed by Donald Trump. The prime minister’s video-linked speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's conference was preceded by the unscheduled introduction of AIPAC President Lillian Pinkus and four other leaders. Choking back tears, Pinkus apologized for Monday night's speeches, implying that Donald Trump had violated a nonpartisan standard. “From the moment this conference began, until this moment, we have preached a message of unity,” Pinkus said. “We have said, in every way we can think of: Come together....

As it stands, the two people most likely to accept their parties' nominations at this summer's national conventions are Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Each has a sizable lead in delegates; each, we are assured by their opponents, will somehow end up losing. Those opponents, Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders*, are hardly objective observers of the situation of course, any more than was Marco Rubio, whose last-minute insistence that he would win Florida was heartbreaking in the manner of an afterschool special. ("You'll get 'em next time, Tiger," we all sniffed. "You'll get 'em next time.") But it's an interesting...

The snide comments began to roll in before the Republican frontrunner even finished his speech. "The Donald can read!" one critic snarled. "He just cut and pasted his pandering remarks," another sneered. "Trump went an entire speech without making fart noises and for that he gets kudos," observed yet another. In fact, most of the commentariat were dismissive of Donald Trump's speech before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee tonight. But just like journalists and pundits who were too contemptuous of Trump to see the strength of his insurgent campaign unfolding before their eyes, those mocking the candidate's teleprompter-aided talk...

Washington Post‘s Karen Attiah sounded the alarms of sorts this afternoon when she Tweeted out the following cryptic message after a meeting with Donald Trump and the WaPo Editorial Board: As you can see from the user engagement on the Tweet, people were quick to follow up on Attiah’s commentary, asking for any clarification on this newly-emerging behavior from the Republican frontrunner. Then Monday night, Attiah — who serves as the Deputy Opinions Editor for the Post — released her story with the headline “I asked Trump a policy question. Then he called me ‘beautiful.’” Attiah mentioned, and transcribed, some...

Ten years ago, an Irish pub owner was clearing land for a driveway when his digging exposed an unusually large flat stone. The stone obscured a dark gap underneath. He grabbed a flashlight to peer in. "I shot the torch in and saw the gentleman, well, his skull and bones," Bertie Currie, the pub owner, said this week. The remains of three humans, in fact, were found behind McCuaig’s Bar in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. And though police were called, it was not, as it turned out, a crime scene. Instead, what Currie had stumbled over was an ancient burial...

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump said Monday he not only would bring back waterboarding, the controversial interrogation technique discontinued by the Obama administration, but also would "approve more than that," even if such tactics prove ineffective. "Would I approve waterboarding? You bet your ass I would -- in a heartbeat," Trump said to loud cheers during a rally at a convention center here Monday night that attracted thousands. "And I would approve more than that. Don't kid yourself, folks. It works, okay? It works. Only a stupid person would say it doesn't work." Trump said such techniques are needed to...

Donald Trump Will (Almost Certainly) Never Be Elected President. Here’s Why. By Greg Sargent March 21 With Donald Trump steamrolling towards the GOP nomination, the political chatter is increasingly focused on whether Trump could win a general election by making surprise inroads into states in the industrial Midwest. Many Democrats and nonpartisan observers see this as probably the only plausible (if that’s even the right word for it) path for Trump, who might do this mainly by running up huge numbers among white voters — particularly blue collar whites. But a new examination of the demographics and projected voting patterns...