December132011
Donald Trump has withdrawn from a proposed televised Republican debate that he would have moderated in Des Moines, Iowa, two days after Christmas.
In a statement he released on Tuesday — which you can read in full here on the Time magazine Web site — Trump acknowledged concerns voiced by some prominent Republicans, including some of the candidates and other party leaders, that he shouldn’t be moderating a debate if there is still some chance that he himself will announce he’s running for president.
The reason this concerns them is this: Though Trump announced earlier this year that he had decided not to run for President as a Republican, he has begun more recently to hold out the possibility, however vaguely, that he might make a run as an Independent, something he would announce after the conclusion of the upcoming season of “The Apprentice” on NBC ends in May.
“I am not willing to give up my right to run as an Independent candidate,” Trump’s statement said. “Therefore, so that there is no conflict of interest within the Republican Party, I have decided not to be the moderator of the Newsmax debate.” […]
May182011
William Rivers Pitt of Truthout:
“Say it ain’t so, Donald. This is so depressing. I was actively looking forward to following the Trump For President crazy train for at least a few weeks longer, if not more. You couldn’t stay in long enough to participate in one debate, Donald? It would have been the show of the year. ‘Birth certificates the blacks love me derp derp derp …’ All lost forever now.
The hairpiece has moved on. I know, I know, it was a joke campaign, a ploy to get people to watch some stupid reality show I am proud to say I’ve never even peeked at once. But you have to understand my perspective here: the quintessential excellence of Trump’s absurd pre-candidacy was the fact that it dragged the fundamental derangement of the GOP base into the light for all to see.”
Read the Article
May162011
CNN) — Real estate mogul and television celebrity Donald Trump, who generated a media publicity blitz by saying he might run for president in 2012, announced Monday that he will instead remain a businessman.
“After considerable deliberation and reflection, I have decided not to pursue the office of the presidency,” Trump said in a statement.
With his typical bravado, Trump maintained that he would have won the Republican primary and the general election, but recognized that “running for public office cannot be done half-heartedly.”
“Ultimately, however, business is my greatest passion and I am not ready to leave the private sector,” Trump said in the statement. […]
{Translation: He can dish it out, but he can’t take it.}
May112011
This is an exchange between Donald Trump and Martha MacCallum on Fox “News”:
MACCALLUM: …You know, when you go home at night and you talk to your wife and you think about all this, how does get — this hammering, in your words, how does that get factored into the decision?
TRUMP: Well, I think it’s very bad for the country. And it doesn’t affect my decision because I think I have a pretty thick skin. But I think it’s very bad for the country because the kind of people — and I’m not talking about myself, I’m talking about generally speaking. The kind of person you need to run this country has to be somebody that really has accomplished a lot because he’s got to accomplish — he or she has to accomplish a lot for the country.
