“Donald Trump has had several foreign wives. It turns out that there really are jobs Americans won’t do.”
— Mitt Romney, quoted by The Hill.
“Donald Trump has had several foreign wives. It turns out that there really are jobs Americans won’t do.”
— Mitt Romney, quoted by The Hill.
Donald Trump tweeted and then deleted a message that threatened to “spill the beans” about Ted Cruz’s wife, Heidi. Then he tweeted again, Politico reports.
Said Trump: “Lyin’ Ted Cruz just used a picture of Melania from a GQ shoot in his ad. Be careful, Lyin’ Ted, or I will spill the beans on your wife!”
Cruz responded: “Pic of your wife not from us. Donald, if you try to attack Heidi, you’re more of a coward than I thought.”
Gawker: What beans does Trump have on Cruz’s wife?
Jeb Bush endorsed Ted Cruz, “becoming the most prominent member of the Republican establishment to support the Texas senator as he tries to slow Donald Trump’s efforts to capture the presidential nomination,” the New York Times reports.
“The endorsement came as aides to Mr. Cruz, who is unliked by much of the Republican leadership and many of his Senate colleagues, have been courting high-profile supporters to bolster his candidacy. The Cruz campaign has also sought support from Sen. Marco Rubio, who dropped out of the race after losing his home state to Mr. Trump on March 15.”
Mike Allen: “The news will surely irk Rubio, who could have benefited greatly from Bush’s embrace. But a Republican source said: ‘Jeb came to believe Marco was not up to the job of being President. It was never really under serious discussion.'”
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Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump “overwhelmed their rivals in the Arizona primaries on Tuesday,” the New York Times reports,”a show of might from two presidential front-runners who are hoping to avoid prolonging the nominating contest and begin training their fire on each other.”
“But Sen. Bernie Sanders thrashed Mrs. Clinton in the Idaho and Utah Democratic caucuses, demonstrating his enduring appeal among liberal activists even as she closes in on the party’s nomination. And Sen. Ted Cruz, who won the Republican contest in Utah, captured more than 50 percent of the vote, giving him all 40 of the state’s delegates and sustaining hope among Mr. Trump’s opponents that he can be slowed, if not stopped.”
A new Quinnipiac poll finds Donald Trump leads the GOP presidential race nationally with 43%, followed by Ted Cruz at 29% and John Kasich at 16%.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton leads Bernie Sanders, 50% to 38%.
Politico: Cruz and Kasich voters prefer Trump as second choice.
Washington Post: “Donald Trump fits no simple ideological framework. The presidential candidate collects thoughts from across the spectrum. Added together, however, his ideas represent a sharp departure from many of the Republican Party’s values and priorities dating back half a century or more.”
“The list of Trump’s apostasies is lengthy and growing by the day… To many people in the party, Trump’s ideas lack intellectual cohesion, but together they reflect the instincts of a dealmaker. He arrives at positions guided less by philosophy than visceral reactions to problems of the moment.”
Politico: “Now many national security specialists fear that further attacks like the bombings that killed at least 30 people in Brussels on Tuesday will fuel Trump’s further rise, drawing more voters to his clenched-fist approach of closed borders and retribution killings — and could ultimately pave his unlikely path to the White House.”
Doug Sosnik: “Until now, Trump has defied the laws of political gravity; but the fact that no major political party has ever nominated such an unpopular candidate for president is inescapable. The strategy that Trump used to appeal to Republican primary voters who are conservative and disproportionately white will work against him with the moderate, diverse electorate this November. It is difficult to understate the level of negative attitudes toward Trump.”
“Regardless of how you do the math, the current environment paints a picture of a Republican Party at the verge of implosion during the most critical period in the presidential campaign. Assuming little changes, years from now people will look back at the decisive nine-day period in mid-October last fall when the stage was set for the 2016 elections. In this narrow window, Hillary Clinton soundly routed Bernie Sanders in the first and single most important Democratic debate of the season, Vice President Biden announced that he wouldn’t run for president and Clinton publicly demonstrated her strength and fortitude during 11 hours of testimony in front of the House Select Committee on Benghazi—a hearing that resembled a Kangaroo Court.”
“Meanwhile, loudly and in full view, sitting high atop the polls facing little or no resistance, Donald Trump was gathering steam toward the Republican nomination and a backward-looking Republican Party was gasping its last breath. And the same Republican Party that once viewed Trump as a laughingstock is now intent on undermining his candidacy.”
“The terrorists will cause Hillary Clinton to lose the election. She’s weak on borders. She’s weak on crime. She’s weak on anything having to do with controversy other than controversy with herself. She’s weak on the police. She’s weak on anything having to do with strength. Hillary is so weak on the borders, and so afraid to talk negatively about protecting our people, that it will end up costing her the election in my opinion.”
— Donald Trump, quoted by Politico.
Sarah Palin has signed a deal to preside as a judge in a new reality television show modeled after Judge Judy, People magazine reports.
The show would premiere next year.
Sam Wang: “Today, John Kasich gives the first of a series of gifts to Donald Trump. What’s inside the box? Maybe 58 delegates – from Arizona, which is winner-take-all.”
“Trump leads the last three surveys done in Arizona. His median support is 47% and his median lead over second-place Ted Cruz is 13 percentage points. In addition, a combined 17-27% goes to Kasich and Rubio (several surveys were done before Rubio dropped out). Previously I pointed out that when reassigned, Kasich/Rubio supporters heavily favor Cruz over Trump. If we reassign those voters in a 4:1 ratio, the resulting medians are Trump 42.4%, Cruz 44.6%. This 2-percentage-point difference is small, and would slightly favor Cruz to win.”
“I have come here to bury the last remnant of the Cold War in the Americas.”
— President Obama, quoted by The Hill, during his visit to Cuba.
Washington Post: “There’s never been a presidential candidate like Donald Trump — someone so cavalier about the facts and so unwilling to ever admit error, even in the face of overwhelming evidence. At last count, nearly 65 percent (17 of 27) of our rulings of his statements turned out to be Four Pinocchios, our worst rating. By contrast, most politicians tend to earn Four Pinocchios 10 to 20 percent of the time. (Moreover, most of the remaining ratings for Trump are Three Pinocchios.)”
“Rob Ford, the Toronto city councilor who became the world’s most famous mayor during a wild, scandal-filled term, is dead at age 46,” the Toronto Star reports.
“In 2013, the Star revealed that Ford had attended a military ball intoxicated and then that a cellphone video apparently showed him smoking crack. That bombshell triggered months of controversy and worldwide headlines as Ford angrily denied, and then finally admitted, abusing drugs and alcohol. Council stripped him of most of his powers.”
Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani will probably endorse Donald Trump for president, Politico reports.
Said Giuliani: “The way I look at it, there really are only three people who will be the next president of the United States. One’s Hillary Clinton, the other’s Donald Trump, and the third is Ted Cruz. So I’ll choose between those three.”
He added: “I’ll give you a hint: it won’t be Hillary Clinton. I seriously doubt it will be Ted Cruz. But I just want to think about it a little bit more before I do anything formally.”
Sen. Ted Cruz “condemned deadly attacks in Brussels Tuesday, saying the incident was a sign that America is ‘at war’ and warning that Donald Trump’s foreign policy is just as feckless, in his view, as that of President Obama,” Politico reports.
Said Cruz: “It is striking that the day after Donald Trump called for America weakening NATO, withdrawing from NATO, we see Brussels, where NATO is headquartered, the subject of an Islamic terrorist attack. Donald Trump is wrong that America should withdraw from the world and abandon our allies.”
First Read: “Three important points to make about tonight: One, on the Republican side, Arizona is winner take all (58 delegates), and Utah is proportional (40 delegates) but winner take all if someone wins by more than 50%. Two, the Democratic contests in Arizona (75 delegates up for grabs), Idaho (23), and Utah (33) are proportional as always. And three, much of Arizona has already voted before today due to the early voting.”
Poll closing times:
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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