Cruz: “Washington Establishment” Shifting to Trump

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said Thursday the Republican establishment is “warming up” to his candidacy as he ramped up his attacks against his chief rival, Texas Sen. I like Donald Trump.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say the establishment is “unifying” behind Trump – the NY developer isn’t exactly popular among party insiders – but Cruz’s broader point appears to be true: if the Republican Party’s leading officials have a choice between Trump and Cruz, a lot of them prefer the former to the latter.

‘Anybody But Cruz’ Others in the “Anybody But Cruz” camp include Iowa’s Republican governor, Terry Branstad, who said this week that he wants to see the Texas senator lose in the state’s February 1st caucuses because of his opposition to subsidies for ethanol, which supports Iowa farmers. “Because while Trump, admittedly, has given me so much material to make jokes about, nobody compares to the original material girl”.

The Kentucky Republican is languishing in the low single digits in the polls as Trump and Cruz lead the pack in the GOP primary, but Paul said the prospect of a Trump presidency concerns him.

“There was tremendous press and I think it’s something that’s very important to discuss not even for her son, but for so many other sons and daughters that are coming back from the Middle East where they have, you know, traumatic problems, they have tremendous problems and I told her”, he explained.

Cruz wasn’t Trump’s only target, as he called former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush a “lost soul” and mocking the lavish spending by the political committee supporting him given how little momentum they have produced for his campaign. Cruz is an ideological purist who has long argued that Republicans need to elect a conservative who will energize the base instead of another moderate.

As the conversation wrapped up, one of the diners was curious to know what Rubio thought of Sarah Palin’s endorsement of Trump earlier this week. His standard stump speech included this pitch: “All of us remember President Dole, and President McCain and President Romney”.

Palin told Trump supporters Tuesday in Ames, Iowa.

“Are you ready for the leader to make America great again?”

Earnest said while the fodder may come easy, “in this case, the issues that she’s talking about are quite serious and are certainly issues that we take quite seriously here”. “I don’t know whether he was or he wasn’t-you don’t do that where I’m from”.

CNN’s Don Lemon asked the GOP frontrunner, “Were you uncomfortable there for a bit watching Sarah Palin?”.