Sioux City, Iowa (CNN)

Trump: "I Could 'Shoot Somebody And I Wouldn't Lose Voters"

Donald Trump boasted Saturday that support for his presidential campaign would not decline even if he shot someone in the middle of a crowded street.

"I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters," Trump said at a campaign rally here.

After the event, Trump declined to answer when asked by CNN to clarify his comments.

Trump has repeatedly pointed to the loyalty of his supporters, many of whom tell reporters and pollsters that almost nothing could make them change their mind about voting for Trump in the presidential race. […]

"National Review disinvited from GOP debate after anti-Trump issue"

The Republican National Committee has disinvited National Review from participating in the Feb. 25 GOP debate because of its outspoken opposition to Donald Trump.

The decision was announced just hours after the conservative magazine published a special anti-Trump issue that included a scathing editorial about the Republican frontrunner and critical contributions from 22 conservative pundits and thought leaders.

"Jack Fowler, the publisher of National Review, wrote in a statement. "The reason: Our 'Against Trump' editorial and symposium."

"We expected this was coming," Fowler continued. "Small price to pay for speaking the truth about The Donald."

H/T: CNN

Politico Reader:
National Review knows that if Trump or Cruz wins the nomination, it'll decimate the conservative movement. They figure they have nothing to lose so they're going for broke. […]

Meanwhile, at a news conference on Capitol Hill yesterday Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C. Repub) took the opportunity to "unload" on The Donald and Ted Cruz.

When Graham was asked by reporters whether he preferred Trump or Cruz as the Repub nominee, Graham responded:

“It’s like being shot or poisoned." ….“What does it really matter?”

Source: CNN

"Against Trump."

Excerpts:

Donald Trump leads the polls nationally and in most states in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. There are understandable reasons for his eminence, and he has shown impressive gut-level skill as a campaigner. But he is not deserving of conservative support in the caucuses and primaries. Trump is a philosophically unmoored political opportunist who would trash the broad conservative ideological consensus within the GOP in favor of a free-floating populism with strong-man overtones.

Any candidate can promise the moon. But politicians have records of success, failure, or plain backsliding by which their promises may be judged. Trump can try to make his blankness a virtue by calling it a kind of innocence. But he is like a man with no credit history applying for a mortgage — or, in this case, applying to manage a $3.8 trillion budget and the most fearsome military on earth.

Trump’s record as a businessman is hardly a recommendation for the highest office in the land. For all his success, Trump inherited a real-estate fortune from his father. Few of us will ever have the experience, as Trump did, of having Daddy-O bail out our struggling enterprise with an illegal loan in the form of casino chips. Trump’s primary work long ago became less about building anything than about branding himself and tending to his celebrity through a variety of entertainment ventures, from WWE to his reality-TV show, The Apprentice. His business record reflects the often dubious norms of the milieu: using eminent domain to condemn the property of others; buying the good graces of politicians — including many Democrats — with donations. […]

Source: NRO

"In the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding on the back of the tiger ended up inside." Pres. John Kennedy