I’ve been wondering if Donald Trump will run as an independent. Yeah, I know he signed that pledge awhile ago saying that he wouldn’t run as an independent. I suspected then that the decision wasn’t sincere — just a strategy to get people on his side, something he’d leave at a moment’s notice if it he was not well supported.
I was right, it turns out.
O’Reilly asked Trump tonight if he will run on a third party ticket if he doesn’t get the delegates to win the nomination. After some pressing, Trump said,
If I’m treated fairly I would never do it. If I’m not treated fairly I might very well do it. Because frankly, my deal was that I have to be treated fairly.
As several Republicans have come out in criticism of Trump’s recent statement that we should not let any Muslims into the country — including Dick Cheney, Jeb Bush, Lindsay Graham, Paul Ryan, and others — and worldwide criticism from even the likes of Benjamin Netanyahu has arisen, it seems increasingly clear that Trump is a liability for the party.
If Trump wanted to put the Republican Party in an awkward, embarrassing position, he couldn’t have planned it better; if he ran as a third party candidate, he would hand the election to the Democratic nominee on a silver platter.