The media storm surrounding Donald Trump rolls on as Trump solidifies his frontrunner status and roars towards the first Republican debates unscathed by controversy or his GOP opponents.
Call him the Teflon Don, here are the latest developments in the Trump Show:
Trump defends Huckabee's "oven" Holocaust comparison
Mike Huckabee has repeatedly refused to apologize for his comment blasting the Iranian nuclear deal and claiming it allows President Obama to "take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven," and Trump thinks that's just alright.
"I mean, I'm OK with it," Trump said of Huckabee's Holocaust analogy on Fox News last night.
"I think he's a very good guy, Huckabee, by the way, and I'm really OK with it," Trump told Fox's Greta Van Susteren. "Some people are saying, 'Oh, the tone,' and I saw Jeb Bush, who I also think is a nice person, but it's not about tone. I mean, they're chopping off Christians' heads in Syria and lots of other places and we're worried about tone. I think what Mike has done is he has hit a nerve and he's made people think a little bit."
Trump once yelled at breast pumping woman: "You're disgusting"
As Republican primary voters insist on treating Trump as a serious presidential contender, media outlets appear obliged to follow suit and The Donald's public history has come under increased scrutiny. The latest revelation comes via the New York Times that reports on a lawyer who claims Trump once yelled at her and called her "disgusting" after she tried to take a break to pump breast milk during a deposition for a lawsuit:
When the lawyer, Elizabeth Beck, asked for a medical break, Mr. Trump and his lawyers objected, demanding that the deposition continue. Ms. Beck said it was urgent — she needed to pump breast milk for her 3-month-old daughter, and she took the pump out to make her point.
Mr. Trump erupted.
“You’re disgusting,” he told Ms. Beck, in a remark that is not disputed by either side. He then walked out of the room, ending the testimony for the day.
Beck appeared on this morning's edition of CNN’s “New Day” where she described Trump saying, “'You’re disgusting, you’re disgusting,' and he ran out of there.”
"It makes you wonder what kind of a presidential candidate who can’t even handle a legal proceeding, a deposition that involves a breast pump…what kind of a leader of the United States would that be?”
Trump would "love" to have Sarah Palin in his administration
Trump sat for an interview on the Palin Update, a radio show for Palin aficionados, where he agreed with the idea of the one-time Republican vice presidential nominee entering the White House as part of a Trump cabinet. “I’d love that," Trump said. "Because she really is somebody who knows what’s happening and she’s a special person, she’s really a special person and I think people know that.”
Trump locked out of Koch empire
Politico takes a look at how Trump, whose appeal is larger based on his independent financial wealth and claims he uniquely can eschew influence peddlers, has no access to perhaps the largest group working on behalf of Republicans in 2016:
The Koch network — a coalition of individual donors and independent groups and companies — intends to spend a whopping $889 million in the run-up to 2016, and is not obliged to stay neutral. While it appears increasingly unlikely that it will officially endorse a GOP primary candidate, it has nonetheless shaped the process by determining which candidates are granted access to i360’s data and the grass-roots activists convened regularly by groups including AFP and Concerned Veterans for America.
In recent weeks, the groups have hosted events with Bush, Rubio and Paul. AFP’s Columbus summit — which refused the Trump campaign’s speaking request — will feature speeches by Bush, Cruz, Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry and Rubio.
A spokesman for i360 declined to comment on why the company, considered the leading supplier of voter data and analytics on the right, refused to provide services to Trump’s campaign. An AFP official said the group doesn’t discuss its event invitations and announces only confirmed speakers. The Koch-backed Latino-voter-targeting outfit LIBRE Initiative was more direct, explaining it has not invited Trump to any of its events and has no plans to do so. A spokesperson pointed to a statement from the group’s president denouncing Trump for his inflammatory statements about Mexican immigrants and called him out as an inconsistent conservative “who has gotten ahead through sensationalism.”
Mark Cuban says Trump is a gamechanger precisely because he is a blowhard
Billionaire Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban lavished Trump with loads of praise yesterday in a post his confidential messaging app, Cyber Dust. "I don't care what his actual positions are," Cuban explained of his fellow former reality TV star. "I don't care if he says the wrong thing. He says what's on his mind. He gives honest answers rather than prepared answers. This is more important than anything any candidate has done in years":
Up until Trump announced his candidacy the conventional wisdom was that you had to be a professional politician in order to run. You had to have a background that was politically scrubbed. In other words, smart people who didn't live perfect lives could never run. Smart people who didn't want their families put under the media spotlight wouldn't run. The Donald is changing all of that. He has changed the game and for that he deserves a lot of credit.
Now maybe we will accept candidates warts and all and look at what they can do rather than what headlines they create ... Congrats Donald.
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