‘I’m not a debater’
Trump tells ABC News that he is not a debater.
These politicians, I always say, are all talk no action. They debate all the time. I don’t debate, I build. I’ve created tremendous jobs, I’ve created a great company. Maybe my whole life is a debate in a way, but the fact is I’m not a debater, and they are. With that being said, I look forward to it, we’ll see what happens…I don’t think I’m going to be throwing punches. I’m not looking to attack.
On his strong tone:
The tone has to be tougher. If we’re going to stop ISIS, if we’re going to clean up the border and stop what’s happening at the border which is a disaster. I have no doubt that [strong tone] works. I have absolutely no doubt. When you see the other side chopping off heads, waterboarding doesn’t sound very severe.
Aiken discusses Trump
Aiken says people should not count Trump out:
I don’t think anybody should discount him. Nobody thought that we would see him in the position he is in right now. He is certainly the frontrunner with no signs of that fading… I think he has a really great opportunity — even if he doesn’t win the Republican nomination — to do something I think the country has needed for a long time, which is to try to break this stranglehold of the two-party system. I kind of hope he decides to stick with it and maybe give people another option outside of the Republicans and Democrats.
Staffer fired for racist posts
Trump’s campaign fires a staffer for having placed racist posts on Facebook. The terminated worker made numerous inappropriate posts dating as far back as 2007. President Obama and Al Sharpton’s daughter are among the people said to have been mentioned, although the person in question, Nunberg, says he does not remember writing them. One of Trump’s advisers confirms that Nunberg is no longer associated with the Donald J. Trump for president campaign,
Will deport illegal immigrants
Trump says he will deport all illegal immigrants in the country but will allow “the good ones” to reenter the country legally.
Legal status. We got to move ’em out, we’re going to move ’em back in if they’re really good people.
Rape comment apology
Cohen apologizes for his comment that “you cannot rape your spouse.” Non-consensual sex between spouses does constitute as rape, experts say. He made this comment while trying to defend trump from comments made by Ivana Trump.
As an attorney, husband and father there are many injustices that offend me but nothing more than charges of rape or racism. They hit me at my core. Rarely am I surprised by the press, but the gall of this particular reporter to make such a reprehensible and false allegation against Mr. Trump truly stunned me. In my moment of shock and anger, I made an inarticulate comment – which I do not believe — and which I apologize for entirely.
Bans Des Moines Register from Iowa event
After the paper issued an editorial that called on Trump to pull out of the race, Trump bans the paper from his campaign event in Iowa, although they may reconsider for later events. Campaign manager:
We’re not issuing credentials to anyone from The Des Moines Register based on the editorial that they wrote earlier in the week.
The Register’s editor:
As we previously said, the editorial has no bearing on our news coverage. We work hard to provide Iowans with coverage of all the candidates when they spend time in Iowa, and this is obviously impeding our ability to do so. We hope Mr. Trump’s campaign will revisit its decision instead of making punitive decisions because we wrote something critical of him.
Endorses Trump
Rodman tweets support for Trump’s presidential campaign, Trump’s first major endorsement from a high-profile celebrity. Trump thanks him for his support.
@realDonaldTrump has been a great friend for many years. We don't need another politician, we need a businessman like Mr. Trump! Trump 2016
— Dennis Rodman (@dennisrodman) July 24, 2015
Trump: Stewart ‘begging’ me to appear on final show
Trump claims Stewart wants him to appear on the final show of The Daily Show on August 6:
They have invited me. I like Jon Stewart — I think he’s good. They’re begging me to go on. I would do it … the problem is it looks like pandering. It looks so false and so phony if I do it.
On Obama appearing on the show:
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with President Obama having done it. I know he took a lot of heat, you know, because they said, ‘What are you doing on a comedy show?’ I think it’s OK. It would’ve been better if he had Stewart come over to the White House, because it would’ve cost nothing. Stewart would’ve loved it, and you’d have saved a lot of money.
Threatens third party run
Trump says he may launch a third-party White House run if the Republican National Committee is unfair to him during the 2016 primary season.
The RNC has not been supportive. They were always supportive when I was a contributor. I was their fair-haired boy. The RNC has been, I think, very foolish…I’ll have to see how I’m being treated by the Republicans,” Trump said. “Absolutely, if they’re not fair, that would be a factor.
Trump says the GOP establishment in Washington dislikes him because he’s not part of the political class.
I’m not in the gang. I’m not in the group where the group does whatever it’s supposed to do. I want to do what’s right for the country — not what’s good for special interest groups that contribute, not what’s good for the lobbyists and the donors. I’m not surrounded by all sorts of pollsters and PR people. I speak the truth. Our country is in big trouble, and I know how to turn it around.
Visits U.S. – Mexico border
Trump visits the U.S. border with Mexico and says he will not apologize for his comments on illegal immigration or back away from his plan to build a wall between the two countries. Trump wears a blazer, white dress shoes and a white ball cap emblazoned with his campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again.” Border Patrol agents who had invited Trump back out, citing the appearance of politicization. Trump accuses unnamed officials in Washington of trying to silence them. When questioned by a Telemundo journalist about his comments on immigration:
No, no, no. We’re talking about illegal immigration and everybody understands that. And you know what: that’s a typical case — wait, that’s a typical case of the press with misinterpretation. They take a half a sentence — they take a half a sentence, then they take quarter of a sentence and put it all together. It’s a typical thing.
How To Destroy Your Cellphone
Graham releases a video called How To Destroy Your Cellphone with Lindsey Graham, showing the senator in slow motion destroying his phone hitting it with a meat cleaver, blending it, hitting it was a baseball bat, dropping a brick on it, dropping it from a building and cooking it.
Or if all else fails, you can always give your number to the Donald. This is for all the veterans.
Gives out Graham’s telephone number
After Graham calls him “The world’s biggest jackass” Trump responds by telling a South Carolina audience that Graham is a “stiff” who could never get a job in the private sector. He then reads Graham’s telephone number aloud, encouraging everyone “let’s try it.”
He doesn’t seem like a very bright guy. He actually probably seems to me not as bright as Rick Perry. I think Rick Perry probably is smarter than Lindsey Graham.
Orders flags to half-staff
Trump orders the flags on his properties to fly at half-staff to memorialize the marines who were killed in the Chattanooga attack. His campaign criticizes President Obama for not ordering American flags lowered.
Call Trump a ‘jackass’
In an interview with CNN, Graham defends McCain and criticizes Trump:
John’s my friend. He’s not a perfect person. He was tortured for five and a half years. When you ask Trump, ‘Do you know what he went through in jail?’ ‘No, it doesn’t matter.’ Yeah, it does matter. It really does matter…I don’t care if he drops out. Stay in the race, just stop being a jackass…This is the beginning of the end of Donald Trump.
‘I don’t need to be lectured’
In an article for USA Today, Trump says that his words on McCain have been distorted by the media, and criticizes McCain and Sanders for “covering up” the Veterans Affairs Scandal:
Thanks to McCain and his Senate colleague Bernie Sanders, their legislation to cover up the VA scandal, in which 1,000+ veterans died waiting for medical care, made sure no one has been punished, charged, jailed, fined or held responsible. McCain has abandoned our veterans. I will fight for them. The reality is that John McCain the politician has made America less safe, sent our brave soldiers into wrong-headed foreign adventures, covered up for President Obama with the VA scandal and has spent most of his time in the Senate pushing amnesty. He would rather protect the Iraqi border than Arizona’s. He even voted for the Iran Nuclear Review Act of 2015, which allows Obama, who McCain lost to in a record defeat, to push his dangerous Iran nuclear agreement through the Senate without a supermajority of votes.
A number of my competitors for the Republican nomination have no business running for president. I do not need to be lectured by any of them. Many are failed politicians or people who would be unable to succeed in the private sector. Some, however, I have great respect for.
He also says that he was as co-chairman of the New York Vietnam Veterans Memorial Commission, which built a Veterans memorial, and that he financed and served as the grand marshal of the 1995 Nation’s Day Parade, which honored over 25,000 veterans.
No apology to McCain
Trump says that he does not owe McCain an apology saying that that vets are treated “like third-class citizens” and that McCain hasn’t done anything to help them.
People that fought hard and weren’t captured and went through a lot, they get no credit. Nobody even talks about them. They’re like forgotten, and I think that’s a shame, if you want to know the truth…I’m very disappointed in John McCain because the vets are horribly treated in this country. I’m fighting for the vets. I’ve done a lot for the vets.
He also says he received a standing ovation at the campaign event where he spoke, that nobody was insulted. On not serving in Vietnam:
If I would have gotten a low number, I would have been drafted. I would have proudly served. But I got a number, I think it was 356. That’s right at the very end. And they didn’t get — I don’t believe — past even 300, so I was — I was not chosen because of the fact that I had a very high lottery number.
Asked if he would continue name calling:
When people attack me, I let them have it back. People are constantly attacking my hair. I don’t see you coming to my defense.
Criticizes McCain
After McCain calls his audience “crazies,” Trump criticizes McCain’s military and Senate record during a question-and-answer session at the Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa.
He’s not a war hero. He is a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured, OK? I hate to tell you. He is a war hero because he was captured. OK, you can have — I believe perhaps he is a war hero. If a person is captured, they’re a hero as far as I’m concerned…But you have to do other things also. I don’t like the job John McCain is doing in the Senate because he is not taking care of our veterans.
Responds to Huffington
Trump responds to The Huffington Post moving him to the entertainment section in a statement that notes that he is “number one in the unimportant Huffington Post poll” as well as other polls, that he is number one with Mexicans in Nevada, and that he expects to win Iowa and New Hampshire, as well as leading a national debate on immigration.
If you have read previously written Tweets, Mr. Trump has never been a fan of Arianna Huffington or the money-losing Huffington Post. The only clown in this scenario is the huffington post pretending to be a legitimate news source. Mr. Trump is not focused on being covered by a glorified blog. He is focused on Making America Great again.
Puts Trump in entertainment section
The Huffington Post says it will put news about Trump in the Entertainment section instead of the Politics section:
After watching and listening to Donald Trump since he announced his candidacy for president, we have decided we won’t report on Trump’s campaign as part of The Huffington Post’s political coverage. Instead, we will cover his campaign as part of our Entertainment section. Our reason is simple: Trump’s campaign is a sideshow. We won’t take the bait. If you are interested in what The Donald has to say, you’ll find it next to our stories on the Kardashians and The Bachelorette.
Ariana Huffington relays the decision on Twitter.
Trump ‘fired up the crazies’
McCain criticizes Trump, commenting on his Phoenix rally:
It’s very bad. This performance with our friend out in Phoenix is very hurtful to me. Because what he did was he fired up the crazies…We have a very extreme element within our Republican Party. We did to some degree regain control of the Party. Now he galvanized them. He’s really got them activated. We’ll see how this plays out, but there is some anger in my state. People who otherwise might be more centrist are angry about this border situation.