Trump rescinds pledge to back Republican nominee; Cruz, Kasich refuse to commit support
Donald Trump said Tuesday that he would no longer honor his pledge to support the eventual Republican nominee for president, while fellow candidates Ted Cruz and John Kasich refused to say whether they would back the party's pick.
All three GOP contenders appeared at a CNN town hall in Milwaukee one week before Wisconsin's April 5 primary.
Trump: ‘I Hate Proliferation’ But It Would Be Better if Japan, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea Had Nuclear Weapons
As usual, his syntax was a mess, but the points he made were that proliferation is irresistible and it would be better for America if Japan, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea got their own nukes and so could take care of their own defense needs, without us.
We are getting financially soaked, he said in substance, providing for the defense of far too many rich countries from which we get little or nothing back, including (for example) Germany.
And anyway we are not going to use nukes to defend all these folks.
All this is of a piece with his previous remarks about NATO being obsolete and a gyp benefiting Europe at America's expense.
This is Pat Buchanan's foreign policy and, no matter what he might say, it most certainly isn't Ronald Reagan's or, for that matter, Richard Nixon's.
It is the policy Antiwar.com has been recommending for decades.
It is the policy of people like Ron Paul and, if I am not mistaken, Rand Paul.
Pat Buchanan and those same others, most definitely including The Donald, oppose not only NATO and (of course) the UN but the EU and most volubly Europe's continuing policy of allowing rapid, mass immigration of Muslims and black Africans.
They used the Greek financial crisis against the EU and now support Brexit.
They say they support a Europe of the Nations, but it's not far from being just a Europe of the Skinheads.
Internationalists like most of the GOP and a bigger most of the Democratic Party see Buchananism as a path to chaos driven by the emergence of so many additional nuclear flash-points at wholly independent and uncoordinated centers of power, able to make local conflicts much worse and more dangerous globally.
They remain committed to the UN, to NATO, to the EU, and to the system of US alliances in the Far East and Oceania as essential elements of peace and order in a very disorderly and unpeaceful world.
Not to mention that the more independent and uncoordinated centers of power there are with nukes in their hands, the greater the chance of genuine horrific WMDs getting into the hands of Jihaders or other crazies.
(For similar reasons, by the way, it would clearly be contrary to the public safety for ever larger numbers of ordinary civilians to routinely go about carrying loaded firearms, ready and probably far too many of them itching for a shootout.)
I have myself from time to time been persuaded by the Buchananite view, but I have to admit that the presence in the race this year of somebody who seems, if genuinely committed to anything, genuinely committed to exactly that has, by making the thing more real, made it more stunning and even appalling.
[Update 12212016. I am far from agreeing with the above 3 paragraphs, now.]
MSNBC just now said Marco Rubio, officially out of the race, is making an unprecedented attempt to retain control of his delegates going into the convention.
Normally, his delegates would be redistributed among remaining candidates before the convention, so Trump would be helped toward getting a majority before the opening day.
It appears from the video that The Donald's campaign manager being charged with simple assault against a journalist is both bogus and politically motivated, and all his enemies are using that incident to raise the level of alarm in the public mind about Trump and his candidacy.
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