lawmakers, candidates, party officials bashing his call for, quote, a total and complete shutdown of muslims entering the united states. with me now to discuss rebaek kaburg national reporter for real clear politicians and ron von gene who used to be the spokesman for trent lott. thank you both for being here. rebecca, you know there are a lot of things politicians have said on tape, on camera and have reversed course on. if he reverses course, does it hurt him? well, with trump it s always hard to know, poppy, because we have predicted time and again that things he has said and done would hurt him and lo and behold they end up not hurting but helping in some cases. it s hard to say. i think that video of him holding up the gop pledge and saying he would run as a republican would be very potent, a very potent tool or weapon for people to use against him if he were to run as a third party candidate. to quite frankly, i would say what he is threatening now in terms of running as a thir
isis, as a leader dealing with these big issues facing our country in a responsible way, that woo would be really helpful. haven t they done everything possible? lindsey graham yesterday today donald trump to go to hell. i ll tell you what, i think speaker paul ryan who is a hero of the gop said it right, that this is not conservativism. this is not what we stand for as a party. and look, yes, brindz graham is helpful. i think the candidates will be asked and put on the spot and they ll be ready to answer forcefully hopefully. we ll be watching next tuesday night. big gop debate, i think the world will be watching. thank you, rebecca and ron. speaking of donald trump, the front-runner sitting down with our very own don lemon today. you will see that entire interview at 10:00 p.m. eastern on cnn tonight . back to our breaking news. take a look, protesters amassing in chicago right now as mayor rahm emanuel holds a news conference with a city on edge, the mayor today apologizing
a tactic than it is an actual threat. because every indication we ve seen from donald trump is that he knows how to play this game. he is very, very clever politically. and what he does by threatening this is prevent the gop from taking him on as wholeheartedly and full throated in a way they might otherwise do. we ll see all of this leading up to the last gop debate of the year, which is on cnn tuesday night. certainly a lot more will be revealed then. ron, i want to look at these numbers again, this usa today poll. 68% of trump supporters, not republicans but trump supporters, right now say, yes, if he leaves the party, runs on his own, we will support him. my question 0 to you is, can the gop still win the presidency if trump does this? well, that s a really great question, and it s really difficult to answer at this point. i would say this. i would say that trump keeps claiming if he s not treated by the gop fairly he would leave. but he is not treating republicans fairly wit
from hilalary clinton, is this classic guilt by association. painting with a broad brush saying that all republicans even if they don t necessarily agree with donald trump are basically in the same camp as him. and this is the risk that a lot of the candidates run right now by not condemning him more actively. this goes back to what ron was talking about. we ve heard some members of congress, some senators come out and rebuke donald trump s remarks. but on the campaign trail we re hearing some very tepid responses to what he has said because at least candidates frankly are afraid of upsetting his supporters because they want to win them over and that could be a problem in the general election. ron, quickly, leading up to the gop debate tuesday night, what do you do if you re one of those candidates who is trying to break through, not polling as well as donald trump and now being painted with the same brush as him? quickly, first of all, i d have to say that i think president obama