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Subscribe to RSSReal estate developer Donald Trump endorses Mitt Romney for president.
Donald Trump formally endorsed Mitt Romney for president on Thursday, describing the former Massachusetts governor as "tough" and "smart" and the best pick in the GOP primary.
Trump and Romney appeared together in Las Vegas to announce the endorsement, which drew heavy media coverage.
"It is a real honor and privilege to endorse Mitt Romney," Trump said in brief remarks. "Mitt is tough, he's smart, he's sharp. He's not going to allow bad things to continue to happen to this country we all love."
Romney said in response: "There are some things that you just can't imagine in your life. This is one of them," adding that it means a "great deal" to have the billionaire's support.
The endorsement follows a bizarre period of time in which several major news outlets -- including the New York Times and Associated Press -- had initially reported that Trump had been planning to endorse Newt Gingrich. The former House speaker had been one of only two candidates to agree appearing at a debate the "Apprentice" host had planned, but which never came to pass. Romney declined attendance.
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Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum (R) said he didn't think the Trump endorsement matters, but added on KDWN radio that if Trump "wants to endorse the person who's most in line with his thinking with respect to the major issue of this economic problem that we're involved in, he should endorse Rick Santorum."
For their part, Democrats seemed to take a degree of joy in the Trump spectacle.
"It really wouldn't be surprising if Donald Trump endorses Mitt Romney, because they both like firing people, and they both made millions doing it" Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, said on msnbc. "Donald Trump is such a cartoon character, no matter who he chooses, it's like Bugs Bunny endorsing ... It's really kind of a non-news event."
DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz tells MSNBC's Thomas Roberts that recent verbal missteps from Mitt Romney show that he has "no concern about people who are struggling."
It's reflective of the media whirlwind to have surrounded Trump's game of footsie with Republican politics over the past year.
Trump had initially thought about running for the GOP nomination last spring. He talked publicly about the possibility of running and even visited New Hampshire. The flirtation coincided with the broadcast of last spring's season of "The Apprentice" on NBC. (NBC is a co-owner of mnsbc.com, along with Microsoft.) Trump had initially promised to make clear his intentions in the show's season finale, but ultimately demurred, and made the announcement separately.
Trump had additionally been one of the most prominent figures to voice suspicions that President Obama had not actually been born in the United States, and, thusly, was constitutionally ineligible to be president. Obama eventually relented and released his long-form birth certificate on April 27, 2011, verifying he was born in Hawaii. Obama made light of the situation at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner on May 1, deriding the media for giving voice to “carnival barkers” like Trump, only to announce the next day that Osama bin Laden had been killed in a daring raid in Pakistan -- planning of which had been ongoing during the annual dinner.
But the discussion of "birther" theories over the course of last spring appears to have harmed Trump in the eyes of the public; Trump had a 26 percent favorable rating in a February 2011 NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, and a 29 percent unfavorable rating. By mid-May, the point at which the real estate magnate announced he wouldn't be running, a Suffolk University poll found that Trump had a 70 percent unfavorable rating, while just 18 percent of Americans had a positive opinion of Trump.
It's also not incredibly clear what, if any, impact the Trump endorsement will have on the trajectory of the race, in Nevada's caucuses on Saturday, or beyond. Romney had already led, at 45 percent, in a poll of likely Nevada caucus-goers released Thursday. He's followed by Gingrich at 25 percent, Santorum at 11 percent and Texas Rep. Ron Paul at 9 percent.
Still, the reality television star continued to play an out-sized role throughout the 2012 cycle. All the Republican candidates visited Trump through the course of last summer with the exception of former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman.
"I think his infusing himself into the dialogue really dumbs down and makes less consequential the very important issues that we must be discussing to get this country back on its feet again," Huntsman said on Fox News in December.
One of the most intensely covered media events of 2011 came when former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin went out for pizza with Trump in Manhattan during a stop on her bus tour of the Northeast, a journey meant to stoke speculation about her own presidential aspirations. When Romney visited Trump, he snuck in and out of the billionaire's headquarters without being captured by staked-out cameras.
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And!! AND!!! "The Donald" Endorses and services MittTaxPittanceRommel. That is like Frankenstein Lining up with Dracula for "Americas Got Talent" These guys are Notorius Fraudsters AND RepublicanCrimeCartelFRONT LINE SOLDIERS!!! While "the Donald" is implicated in"luxury Housing-Condo" percentage cut for NameLicense Use SCAMS, MittTaxPittanceRommel is EXPOSED with his 13% taxes on EZ $42,000,000 income for which WE American Taxpayers have the pleasure of paying $7,500,000 of MittTaxPittance taxes FOR HIM. Aren't We Thrilled!!!These guys are the NUMBER 1 Players IN BLOCKING AnAmericanNationalHealthCareUniversalPlan, Which WE Need Very Sorely, So their corporate masters can make a killing on US. FactCheck: The ceo of UnitedHealthcare take-home pay for 2009 was $128,000,000CASH!! NO HealthCare in America IS A NATIONAL DISGRACE. Our Neighbors: Canada, England, France, Italy, Israel, Which we Taxpayers totally fund, Spain, Portugal and So on and So On and So On have them. EGADS!! Even the Towelheads have NationalHealthcarePlans!!! Think of it! America, THE Most "civilized and advanced" Country in the World DOES NOT HAVE An AmericanNationalUniversalHealthCarePlan for Her Citizens!!! The 1-10%Rich and Corporate Rich won't allow Her!!! Instead MittTaxPittanceRommel Wants War Here, There and EveryWhere HIS Enterprising Corporate Masters can turn a profit. MittTaxPittanceRommel has a son does he not?? Then put that kid on the front lines to fight a manufactured enemy. Even sinoala drug king Joaquin"Chapo"Guzman pays for an Excellent HealthCare Plan in the towns he controls. We Need to Change who is in control of America And it IS NOT the 1-10percentRich and CorporateRich..........
Does anybody actually believe what Donny says. He says and does things that could only better himself. What he should say is a need a new rat to wear on my head.
I'm waiting for Trump's droplets of wisdom and profound choice of words to highlight his most honored endorsement. “He's not going to allow bad things to continue to happen,” that is quite a profound statement and one I expect from someone whose catchphrase is ‘you’re fired’.
Is Romney the best pick or merely the last man standing? Perhaps last man standing qualifies as a best pick for some.
We have got to keep the right wing christian evanglicals and the Pope and his rapist catholic priests out of policitcs. The Pope's representative, Santorum, must never be allowed to hold any public office. They are like the Taliban trying to impose their biblical fairy tale beliefs on everyone. We have to defeat all right wing radical crcaked teanuts already in Congress. Their approval is down to a new low today in a new poll-11%.
I think women saw the influence and pressure of the right wing nuts on the Susan B. Komen Foundation to stop funding Planned Parenthood. The women of this country rose up and got them to withdraw that stupid idea.
The right wing evangelical nuts have got to be taught that the vast majority of women want to have freedom of choice and no one except the brainwashed Children of the Corn wants Creationism taught as a true science.
We have to keep these dark ages dunces out of governemt and politics.
Agreed.
Well said Hamm1 !!!!!
Cool just discovered Americans Elect online. Maybe there is hope for another choice in 2012 for a fiscal conservative.
Any suggestions on a fiscal conservative
When I talk about a top notch education system I am NOT talking about the NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND excuse to de-fund the education system due to lack of "performance" on standardized tests non-sense.
When I talk about balancing the budget I do not mean "cut all social programs", "increase defense spending to all time highs", "refusing to pay bills already incurred", or "cutting taxes". I am talking about going through budgets line by line to cut out redundancies and waste on all budget items, stabilizing social programs so they can be sustained, and changing the tax code so it is obvious what revenue level to expect each year. I also want it to be obvious in the tax code that the poor are paying less than middle, and middle is paying less than top without gap areas where you are paid more money but take home less pay.
Good night.
Some good choices are the tax evader, lyin Willard, The criminal lobbyist, Nut Gingerhead, who took payoffs to get regulations eased to allow Freddie and Fannie to package worthless mortgages and sell them to banks and insurance compamnies all over the world, liberty for the Guantanamo muslims who are loved by Ron(Puke) Paul and the Pope's boy, Sanitarium, who would ban all abotions and have any doctore tried for murder that performed an abortion.
The worst part of these abti-scince freaks are that they want to ban stem cell research. Peyton Manning had to go overseas to get stem cell treatments for injuries he had. On the show, The Doctors, it was shown how stem ces can rebuild cartilege and make knee, hip and shoulder transplants a thing of the past. But the religious dunces who back the teanuts won't let let do stem cell research with new stem cells.
However, the best combination of fiscal conservatives are Herman (9Kampf) Cain, the dress slitherer. He should draft Jerry Sandusky, the hero of the rapist catholic priests to be his running mate. After all the right wing cracked teanut evangelical Children of the Corn who vote for these nuts, really don't care what they did in the past. as long as vote to ban abortion and have Creationism taugh as the true science in all schools is all that matters.
Hamm1 most of the names on the Republican primary ballot are NOT fiscal conservatives. This is why I mentioned Americans Elect. There are names on here who are fiscally conservative. There are also liberals and blue dog democrats.
How do they all fit into that tiny little car?
Here is the right wing dunces plan for increasing employment. Spend 2
trillion dollars to establish a moon colony on a dead body with no atmosphere.
There is no oxygen and very little water. The daytime temperature is above the
boiling point of water and iit is about 160 degrees centrigrade. below zero at
night.
The right wing radical cracked teanuts idea is to mine minerals and bring
them back to earth for about $25 million for a few hundred pounds of iron ore.
Their true purpose is to surface mine Helium3 for use in fusion reactors 50
years into the future. Fusion reactors are more theoretical than Jesus being the
son of God. They don't even know if a fusion reactor can be built with materials
we currently have on earth
But when the stupid repukes want to spend 2 trillion dollars, you didn't hear
any complaints about it leaving the debt to our future childen.
I think it would be best to send the right wing nuts along with Groper
Nutquist to be the first moon colonists