Republican Graham blasts rivals Trump, Cruz for ‘garbage’ immigration ideas

According to Donald Trump, the violence in San Bernardino on Wednesday “probably was related” to “radical Islamic terrorism”. Senator Lindsey Graham of SC: “I may have the first all-Jewish Cabinet”. “Perhaps more than any room I’ve ever spoken to”.

The crowd – many of them early Bush supporters – laughed, sometimes amused, sometimes uncomfortable.

“People are reluctant to take him on because he lashes back like ISIS”, said former Nevada Republican Gov. Robert List, who believes there’s only a “small chance” that Trump becomes the nominee. The party’s hawkish foreign policy establishment will side with Rubio, who’s promising everything, while others who fear getting bogged down in an extended overseas nation-building effort may find Cruz more preferable.

Trump’s rivals at the RJC forum spent the bulk of the day vying for the title of most pro-Israel, though New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie turned the audience’s attention to the killings in San Bernardino, California, by late afternoon. “I believe that it’s not about turning out evangelical Christians, it’s about repairing the damage done by incredibly hateful rhetoric driving a wall between us and the fastest-growing demographic in America – who should be Republican”.

Graham’s speech wasn’t the one he planned, he said – he had meant to talk about his most recent trip to Iraq and his foreign policy strategy. “Look, I’m a negotiator like you folks, we’re negotiators”, he said, criticizing President Obama’s Middle East policies and nuclear deal with Iran.

Cruz’s strategy of playing to the conservative base is setting the party up for oblivion, Graham said.

Trump, who has said he is so wealthy that he doesn’t need the help of donors like Adelson, said in an October 13 interview on Fox News, “I like Sheldon a lot”. He noted he has won several awards from Jewish groups and recently said he has “a very good relationship” with Adelson.

He also knocked Cruz and Florida Sen. But the party will have to play defence to maintain that control: Of the 15 Senate seats up for election next year that the Cook Political Report rates as competitive, 12 are now occupied by Republicans. Graham asked the RJC crowd, which was largely old, white and male. “If you don’t understand the following we are making a big mistake”.

The campaign arm for Senate Republicans is imagining a world in which Donald Trump is the party’s standard-bearer for the 2016 election, with a leaked memo noting, “Trump could win”. “It’s about looking Hispanic Americans in the eye and saying, ‘We get it, be part of our cause, ‘” Graham said, referring specifically to the damage wrought by bag of hair Donald Trump.

But even in the face of more evidence of Trump’s endurance — and grudging recognition that a Trump victory is no longer outside the realm of possibility — many establishment Republicans still insist that ultimately, the businessman is unlikely to clinch the nomination.

“Now it’s not self-deportation, it’s forced deportation”, Graham continued.

“This simplistic notion that, ‘Leave Assad there because he’s a brutal killer but he’s not as bad as what’s going to follow him, ‘ is a fundamental and simplistic and risky misunderstanding of the reality of the region”, Rubio said in a response to a question about Syria. “He sounds like he’s not familiar with the group”. Every one of them, including their American citizen children. This makes it more likely that Ben Carson, Ted Cruz or even Mike Huckabee or Rick Santorum will wind up first there.

“Early on in the election it is really easy to vote your anger”, said analyst Stuart Rothenberg, founder of the Rothenberg & Gonzales Political Report.