On Sunday’s Meet the Press, National Journal reporter Ron Fournier downplayed the likelihood of Donald Trump becoming the Republican nominee by arguing “[t]his man is more liberal than any Bush and more slippery than any Clinton.”
Fournier reacted to new polls that show Trump’s standing in the Republican primary has not completely collapsed after his attack on John McCain as evidence that “[i]f it was just on merits, he wouldn't be anywhere. But he stands for something else.”
The National Journal reporter suggested that Trump was “reflecting his anger and this populism that you talked about before” and then compared him to other failed candidates with a similar message that won’t go away :
What if Ross Perot, who got 19%, is not a credible man in a time that wasn’t as tumultuous as our times now, what he had the internet? What if Huey Long had radical connectivity?..So, I think Trump is not going to win the nomination would be my guess, but what he stands for is not going to go away. And somebody else is going to tap it and it's not going to be somebody in of these two parties.
Republican strategist Sara Fagen downplayed Trump’s impact on the 2016 race even more but suggested that he was merely “sucking up a lot of oxygen, and there's a lot of noise in the system, but at the end of the day, he is not going to be the Republican nominee.”
See relevant transcript below.
NBC’s Meet the Press
July 26, 2015
CHUCK TODD: Sara Fagan let me tell you too because our polling in both Iowa and New Hampshire was conducted a little bit before the McCain incident, remember the John McCain, Donald Trump incident, and a little after. What's interesting is in Iowa, Trump's numbers actually went up post-incident. He was at 16% before, 18% after. In New Hampshire not surprisingly, where McCain is still beloved, before Trump was at 26% in the half of the survey that was conducted after the incident he went down to 14%. So trashing John McCain is bad politics in New Hampshire still.
SARA FAGEN: It is bad politics in New Hampshire. But let’s also keep in mind, yes, Donald Trump has had a good couple of weeks from a poll perspective, but he's at 20%. Which means that 80% of Republican voters are not for him right now. And so he's sucking up a lot of oxygen, and there's a lot of noise in the system, but at the end of the day, he is not going to be the Republican nominee. And that support is likely to go elsewhere, to a Ted Cruz or perhaps a Rand Paul.
AMY WALTER: That's what I wanted to touch on, too which was has he hit a ceiling now at 20%? When you look at his negatives in New Hampshire, he's at 53%. There's nowhere to go after 20% when your negatives are 53%.
TODD: By the way, this has been an improvement, though. Ron, every time--
WALTER: He was at 65% and getting 14%.
TODD: Amy, I was where you were. I would always say, oh, yes, this is the peak. This is the end. Every time we think -- I'm with you Ron.
RON FOURNIER: First of all, again, this is not about Trump. This man is more liberal than any Bush and more slippery than any Clinton, okay? If it was just on merits, he wouldn't be anywhere. But he stands for something else. He's reflecting his anger and this populism that you talked about before. And you heard a couple of names brought up. What if Ross Perot, who got 19%, is not a credible man in a time that wasn’t as tumultuous as our times now, what he had the internet? What if Huey Long had radical connectivity?
TODD: What if William Jennings Bryan had it by the way?
FOURNIER: Exactly. So, I think Trump is not going to win the nomination would be my guess, but what he stands for is not going to go away. And somebody else is going to tap it and it's not going to be somebody in of these two parties.
