Time: “The GOP has awakened less than a month from the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary to find itself in bed between a bombshell and a kamikaze. It’s a sobering dawn for a political party that seemed just a tweak or two away from glory. Republicans dominate America’s state legislatures and governors’ mansions. They control both houses of Congress.”

“The problem is that the party is weak at the national level, deeply divided into hostile camps, while Trump has the strength of a technological epoch at his back. … They won’t stop Trump because they can’t stop Trump.”

Donald Trump “has threatened to cancel over 700 million pounds ($1 billion) of planned investments in golf courses in Scotland if Britain slaps him with a travel ban,” Reuters reports.

“The threat from Trump, owner of two golf courses in his mother’s homeland of Scotland, comes as British lawmakers prepare to hold a debate on a petition signed by over half a million people calling for him to be barred from the country after his proposal to stop Muslims entering the United States.”

“A widen­ing dis­tance between per­spect­ives about Don­ald Trump among Re­pub­lic­ans and all oth­er voters—the Trump gap—presents GOP lead­ers with a conun­drum as the primar­ies ap­proach,” Ron Brownstein writes.

“Re­pub­lic­an par­tis­ans and some oth­er con­ser­vat­ive-lean­ing con­stitu­en­cies are demon­strably warm­ing in their at­ti­tudes to­ward the blustery busi­ness ex­ec­ut­ive. But views of Trump gen­er­ally re­main stag­nant, or are even de­teri­or­at­ing, among adults who identi­fy as Demo­crats or in­de­pend­ents. With­in that mix, the groups at the core of the co­ali­tion that powered Pres­id­ent Obama’s two vic­tor­ies ex­press es­pe­cially tox­ic opin­ions about him.”

“The dy­nam­ic sug­gests that more Re­pub­lic­ans are grow­ing com­fort­able with the pro­spect of Trump win­ning the party nom­in­a­tion, even as res­ist­ance to him is so­lid­i­fy­ing among the voters he would need to win the gen­er­al elec­tion.”