Im not a debater, Ive never debated before, Trump said Sunday on NBCs Meet the Press.
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“I don’t think I’m going to be throwing punches”, he said. “If you elect me president, the will to secure the border will reside in the Oval Office”.
For Perry and other Republican candidates, the simplest objective Thursday might be to make a positive first – or second – impression, and do no harm.
The GOP debates are as much a pitfall to stumble over as they are an opportunity to shine.
Donald Trump greets supporters, tourists and the curious after taping an interview with Anderson Cooper at a Trump-owned building in Manhattan, July 22, 2015 in New York City. Lindsey Graham, a competing Republican presidential candidate, the Gawker website published what it claimed was the billionaire businessman’s cell phone number.
The forum will bring together nearly all of the 17 major Republican candidates for president for a debate-lite event, which – unlike Thursday’s nationally televised debate in Cleveland – doesn’t have a cut-off for participation.
AM 760’s Armstrong & Getty go back and forth on how they feel about Trump’s approach for the first GOP presidential debate and how he’ll fare against his opponents. The questions are based on submissions from newspaper readers in New Hampshire, Iowa and South Carolina.
Thursday’s debate will include the top 10 candidates based on national polling averages. “That may be understandable later, but the first votes are half a year away and there are a lot more than 10 viable candidates”.
Trump has dumbfounded political pundits and analysts with his meteoric ascendancy in the national polls.
And a few of the candidates aren’t in Manchester for the event, but rather at C-SPAN studios in Washington. Carly Fiorina and Rick Perry each earn 2% and Bobby Jindal, Rick Santorum, Sen. This is not one he uses. The Ohio governor was one of the last candidates to get in the race, enjoying a well-timed bump in the polls that may be enough to catapult him into the debate.
“Maybe my whole life is a debate, in a way”, Trump continued.
As reported by a Monmouth University survey released Monday, Republican voters aren’t happy with the criteria in determining who gets on stage for the first debate.
“We just want our folks to concentrate on what they should do to make our country better”, Preibus added before explaining that “when there are that many people running, our role at the RNC is to remain neutral”, he said.
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Donald Trump has widened his national lead in the latest Monmouth University Poll of Republican voters and now holds a more than 2-to-1 advantage over his nearest rivals, Jeb Bush and Scott Walker. “He has support across the ideological spectrum”, said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute.
