Texas Democrats are being told they have their "greatest opportunities in a generation" this November with Donald Trump as the Republican presidential nominee and majorities of voters viewing corruption as a major problem in state government.
Austin-based Democratic pollster Leland Beatty argues, in a memo obtained by The Texas Tribune, that several factors, including an anticipated drop in GOP straight-ticket voting, could provide beleaguered state Democrats their biggest opening in 20 years. His predictions come as Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton continues to trounce Trump in all national and most battleground state polling, raising questions about his strength even in some reliably red states.
In Texas, 20 state House districts may be in play out of 39 where there is a GOP incumbent and a Democratic challenger on the ballot, Beatty wrote. In all 39 districts, a majority of those expected to vote — ranging from 52 percent to 72 percent — see corruption as widespread in Texas government, according to Beatty's projections.
Beatty also said Democrats stand a chance of an upset victory near the top of the statewide ballot in the railroad commissioner's race, where Democrat Grady Yarbrough is up against Republican Wayne Christian. Beatty called both candidates "virtually unknown by Texas voters."
One caveat to Beatty's analysis involves money. In the 20 House races that could be competitive, he said the Democratic candidates "do not appear financially ready to compete," with 13 having reported less than $5,000 in the bank as of June 30.
There is still hope for Democrats, according to the pollster.
"Given the current sentiment of voters, the drumbeat of news of corruption at the highest levels of State government, the disastrous Trump candidacy and a poor outlook for Republican straight ticket voting — Democrats won't need as much money as their counterparts to be competitive," Beatty wrote.
A poll done by Beatty in June found Clinton trailing Trump in Texas by only 7 percentage points, 30 percent to 37 percent. A week later, a nonpartisan University of Texas/Texas Politics Project survey found a similar margin, with Clinton behind Trump by 8 points, 33 percent to 41 percent.
State Democrats got a shot in the arm earlier this week when Clinton's running mate, Tim Kaine, dropped in on Texas for a two-day fundraising swing that included a volunteer thank you event Tuesday in Austin. The U.S. senator from Virginia told volunteers he and Clinton are "very serious" about Texas, and in a subsequent radio interview, he said it is "definitely possible" Clinton could carry the state in November.
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump gave dueling economic addresses this week, offering contrasting visions of where we are now and where each candidate would like to take us.
Speaking in Warren, Michigan on Aug. 11, Clinton challenged listeners to “go out and build the future.” Her speech emphasized job creation, workforce skills and American competitiveness. She pledged to bring broadband to every American household by 2020, to simplify tax filing for small businesses and to spend US$25 billion for infrastructure. Clinton promised to limit child care costs to 10 percent of family income.
Clinton also talked tough on trade policy:
“I will stop any trade deal that costs America jobs or holds down wages, including the Trans Pacific Partnership. I oppose it now, I’ll oppose it after the election and I’ll oppose it as president.”
Meanwhile, during a speech in Detroit on Aug. 8, Trump offered his vision of an “America first” economy. It mixed traditional Republican policies to cut taxes with his against-the-GOP-grain attacks on free trade. He also offered an appeal to working moms with a plan to make child care costs tax deductible.
Tax cuts, however, were the centerpiece of his plans:
“I am proposing an across-the-board income tax reduction, especially for middle-income Americans. This will lead to millions of new good-paying jobs. The rich will pay their fair share, but no one will pay so much that it destroys jobs, or undermines our ability to compete.”
The Conversation scholars have been covering these and other economic themes of the campaign for many months. The following articles are what we consider essential reading on the issues.
Trade takes center stage
Trade has been one of the most important issues candidates have tussled over. Bernie Sanders' anti-trade tirades made the issue a key part of the Democratic primary and forced Clinton to turn against the TPP.
Some scholars have also identified flaws in the 12-nation trade accord. NYU’s Rachel Rothschild writes that it departs from a half-century of diplomatic progress on the environment and human rights:
“America does not need to sacrifice its progress toward worker protections and environmental safeguards to compete for influence with China. We didn’t do this with the Soviet Union, and we shouldn’t do it now.”
“The TPP is less about tariffs and more about creating a coherent global code of conduct for how firms do business in the world. Done right, the agreement would bring important new policy priorities to the negotiating table. It would be a shame to let this chance pass us by.”
Trump, meanwhile, has reversed decades of Republican orthodoxy on trade and made opposing the TPP, as well as past accords like NAFTA, a key element of his economic platform. But is he right that the TPP would destroy millions of jobs? Greg Wright of the University of California, Merced and Emily Blanchard of Dartmouth took a look at the potential winners and losers under the agreement.
“The simple truth is that trade agreements change the composition of jobs in the economy. Some workers will be happier with their new jobs, and others will not. Whatever the job losses from the TPP, a roughly equal number will be created.”
Haves and have-nots
Income and wealth inequality is another persistent theme of the 2016 presidential elections. Alan Auerbach of the University of California, Berkeley and Laurence Kotlikoff of BU designed a large scale study to better define the drivers of the growing gap between rich and poor by focusing on lifetime spending inequality. Their conclusion?
“Inequality, properly measured, is extremely high, but is far lower than generally believed.”
Besides propelling the haves at the expense of the have-nots, the significant inequality that does exist is making us a more polarized nation politically, according to Stanford’s Christos Makridis. And that polarization is actually making it harder to resolve the problem, argue Robert Blendon and John Benson of Harvard.
“What is critical to understand is just how wide the gap between members of the two parties is in terms of how they perceive income inequality’s seriousness and what policies might reduce it.”
Policies and populists
As we approach November, we’re getting more specifics from the candidates on their plans to grow the economy and create more jobs.
Trump, for one, is beginning to offer more detail on his plans to “make America grow again,” but Jeffrey Kucik, a political scientist at City University of New York, warns that there’s a cost to economic policies fueled by populism, as the British are learning after their vote to leave the European Union.
“It shows the dangers of turning away from market institutions like the EU and of introducing political uncertainty into the marketplace. These results should send a powerful warning to those in the U.S. who want to pursue a similar strategy.”
The despair over Donald Trump's candidacy has reached new lows among Republican insiders this week.
One day after Republican strategist Matt Mackowiak said that Republicans faced an "extinction-level event" this fall if Trump didn't drastically change course, several anonymous GOP insiders tell Politico that it's time to stick a fork in The Donald's presidential aspirations.
"Trump is underperforming so comprehensively," fumed one Iowa Republican. "It would take video evidence of a smiling Hillary drowning a litter of puppies while terrorists surrounded her with chants of 'Death to America.'"
A Wisconsin Republican, meanwhile, bemoaned the fact that Trump is woefully far behind Clinton when it comes to creating a competent get-out-the-vote operation in key swing states.
"Considering the disadvantage a GOP candidate starts with, the work in key targeted states like Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania has to be error-free," he said. "There is no evidence that Trump has done that or that he has much of a ground game to begin with."
Even one Republican who said Trump still had a chance to turn it around conceded that his time is running out very quickly -- and said that "if he doesn't move in 15 days, it's effectively over."
Check out the full piece on Republican despair over Trump at this link.
Less than an hour after his boss backtracked on fingering President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton as the "founders" of the Islamic State militant group, a Donald Trump surrogate went on CNN to pick up the pieces.
Michael Cohen, an executive vice president in the Trump Organization, appeared on CNN less than an hour after his boss tweeted that his claims, which he repeatedly insisted were serious, were actually just a mystifying attempt at sarcasm.
CNN's Chris Cuomo asked Cohen to explain Trump's comments, and the campaign spokesman accidentally betrayed that he'd been sent to appear on "New Day" with no idea of what his boss wanted him to say.
"I think the best thing would be if Mr. Trump called in (and) had the conversation with you himself," Cohen said.
Cuomo quickly interjected, saying he welcomed the Republican presidential nominee's explanation "anytime" -- which seemed to surprise Cohen.
"I mean, there's nobody better to answer Mr. Trump than Mr. Trump," Cohen said.
Cuomo asked if the candidate's strange explanation for his conflicting claims about a deadly serious topic should sow any doubts in voters' minds about Trump's trustworthiness.
"I think you do take him at his word for everything," Cohen said.
"But that's how we got into this situation," Cuomo responded.
After a pause, Cohen said he watched Cuomo grill another campaign surrogate Thursday on Trump's claims about Obama, Clinton and ISIS.
"I watched your show yesterday with Mayor (Rudy) Giuliani, and what he was talking about is how the mainstream media wants to pick on every single word," Cohen said. "Again, I think Mr. Trump will answer this question better than anybody else."
Trump, according to a follow-up tweet posted more than an hour later, seems to prefer being inscrutable.
Donald Trump seems to be coming unglued right before our eyes.
One day after Trump insisted that he really meant that Barack Obama was the "founder" of ISIS, the Republican presidential nominee is now claiming it was all one big joke.
In a tweet posted on Friday morning, Trump slammed "ratings challenged" CNN for accurately reporting that "I call President Obama (and Clinton) 'the founder' of ISIS, & MVP."
Trump then ended with a caps-lock flourish: "THEY DON'T GET SARCASM?"
So was Trump really being "sarcastic" about Obama being the "founder" of ISIS? Let's roll the tape.
Right-wing radio host Hugh Hewitt asked Trump on Thursday if he meant that Obama founded ISIS metaphorically — that is, because he pulled out of Iraq, it created a power vacuum that was filled by ISIS.
“No, I meant he’s the founder of ISIS,” was Trump’s reply.
Trump proceeded to repeat his claim that Obama founded ISIS multiple times at rallies throughout the day.
And now he's come back and said it was just subtle irony.
It will be interesting to see what happens when Russia invades Estonia and Trump tries to stop them by telling them he was just being "sarcastic" about not defending them as a NATO ally.
For good measure, Trump posted a followup tweet mocking people in the media who couldn't figure out when he was being serious and when he wasn't.
Because, you know, saying things whose meanings are hard to decipher is totally a great quality to have as president.
U.S. intelligence officials told top congressional leaders a year ago that Russian hackers were attacking the Democratic Party, three sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday, but the lawmakers were unable to tell the targets about the hacking because the information was so secret.
The disclosure of the Top Secret information would have revealed that U.S. intelligence agencies were continuing to monitor the hacking, as well as the sensitive intelligence sources and the methods they were using to do it.
The material was marked with additional restrictions and assigned a unique codeword, limiting access to a small number of officials who needed to know that U.S. spy agencies had concluded that two Russian intelligence agencies or their proxies were targeting the Democratic National Committee, the central organizing body of the Democratic Party.
The National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies sometimes delay informing targets of foreign intelligence activities under similar circumstances, officials have said.
The alleged hacking of the Democrats and the Russian connection did not become public until late last month when the FBI said it was investigating a cyber attack at the DNC. The DNC did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
The congressional briefing was given last summer in a secure room called a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIF, to a group of congressional leaders informally known as the "Gang of Eight," the sources said.This group includes four Republicans: Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell and House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, and Senator Richard Burr and Representative Devin Nunes, the House and Senate intelligence committee chairs. Their Democratic counterparts are Senator Harry Reid and Representative Nancy Pelosi, and Senator Dianne Feinstein and Representative Adam Schiff of the intelligence committees.
Ryan's press secretary, AshLee Strong, declined to comment, and Pelosi's office did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Pelosi on Thursday called the hacking an "electronic Watergate" and said the Russians were behind it.
'Spearphishing'
DNC officials have said they did not learn about the hacking until months after the initial congressional briefing, when an agent from an FBI cybersecurity squad asked them last fall about the party's data security arrangements.
Even then, the Democratic sources said, the FBI agent never mentioned that U.S. intelligence officials suspected that Russian hackers were targeting the organization.
The attack on the DNC later led the hackers to other party organizations, including the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which raises funds for House candidates, Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, and other groups.
A DCCC spokeswoman declined to comment.
The hackers initially used "spearphishing" - attacks on the private email accounts of dozens of people working for the organizations, several sources said.
One of the sources said the Clinton campaign first detected attacks on its data system in early March, and was given what the source described as a "general briefing" about it by the FBI later that month. The source said the FBI made no mention of a Russian connection in that briefing and did not say when the penetration first took place.
According to a memo obtained by Reuters, interim DNC Chair Donna Brazile said on Thursday she was creating a Cybersecurity Advisory Board "to ensure prevent future attacks and ensure that the DNC's cybersecurity capabilities are best-in-class."
(Reporting by Mark Hosenball and John Walcott; Additional reporting by Julia Harte; Editing by Ross Colvin)
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's campaign team is to meet officials from the Republican National Committee on Friday in what was described as a routine meeting to discuss joint operations in the state of Florida.
Officials for both the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee said the session is the type of typical meeting that takes place in the middle of a presidential campaign with three months to go until the Nov. 8 election.
Trump was not expected to attend the Orlando gathering after staging a rally near here on Thursday. He is to hold separate events on Friday in Erie and Altoona, Pennsylvania.
The New York businessman is struggling to get past a rough patch during which he has suggested gun rights activists could take action against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, a statement he said was aimed at rallying votes against her.
He is currently behind Clinton in opinion polls, and many Republicans are alarmed that not only could the party lose the chance to win the White House but that Republican majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives could be at stake.
In recent weeks Trump has seen a steady stream of moderate Republicans vow not to support him, such as U.S. Senator Susan Collins of Maine, while 50 Republican national security experts signed a letter opposing him.
Trump has blamed the U.S. news media for taking many of his comments out of context, and on Thursday night, some of his supporters heckled and cursed reporters who covered his rally in a large arena in nearby Kissimmee.
(Reporting By Steve Holland; Editing by Richard Pullin)
Every election cycle, there are citizens who don’t like either of the candidates nominated by the two major political parties.
And so, a familiar debate begins: Is a vote for a third party a principled stand – or wasteful naiveté?
This year, party discord has swelled the numbers of dissatisfied citizens, and the debate is even louder than usual.
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are unprecedentedly unpopular. On the left, intense pressure is mounting to vote for Hillary Clinton to avoid what many think will be genuine, large-scale dangers of a Trump presidency. This pressure is most intense in states that rank relatively high on what Nate Silver describes as the “voter power index” like Nevada or Florida. But such arguments are also engendering a defiant backlash as voters declare, “I will not vote out of fear.”
As a moral philosopher, I’m particularly interested in the question of whether we can be obligated to vote for someone we dislike. Let’s look at the arguments.
The third-party dilemma
Pretend for a moment that you are a swing-state voter who agrees with the following four statements.
A Donald Trump presidency would be a disaster.
A Hillary Clinton presidency would be better.
A third-party candidate would be better still.
Neither third-party candidate has a serious chance of becoming president.
My point here is not to defend these claims, since it doesn’t matter whether I believe them. What matters is that there are people who do accept them, and they are trying to decide whether they really ought – whether they are morally required – to vote for Hillary.
Although many such voters are predictably Bernie supporters who object to Clinton on various grounds, the dilemma applies to many on the right as well.
Trump has divided the Republican Party, and many conservative voters – or even conservative leaders – have had trouble supporting the nominee. It is quite possible that these individuals also endorse claims 1-4.
The integrity objection
The angry rejection of the idea that one ought to vote for someone she finds objectionable is not only understandable, but I think tied to something deeply important. Voters are being told that they ought to vote so as to minimize harm, which sounds like a moral commandment. But these voters also have a conflicting moral belief – that they ought not to endorse a candidate that they take to be corrupt. They are being put into the position of choosing an external moral principle over an internal one.
One of the things that Green Party supporters say is that you aren’t supposed to vote for the lesser of two evils – after all, the lesser of two evils is still evil. Rather, you’re supposed to vote for the best candidate.
One way to think about the third-party vote is that it is a form of conscientious objection. Such a vote, like abstaining from voting, allows the voter to avoid acting in a way that she thinks is wrong or distasteful. We can understand this person’s vote for a third party as a commitment not to let the badness of the world force her into violating her principles.
The issue being identified here is not a new one. Philosophers have long argued that, while the consequences of one’s actions are morally relevant, they rarely or never amount to a requirement to act in a way inconsistent with one’s firmly held commitments. A British philosopher named Bernard Williams famously argued that if we were forced to abandon our ideals every time the world conspired to make following through with them suboptimal, this would rob us of our integrity. This is a very compelling idea.
The self-indulgence response
Future Hillary voters?
REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
Williams seems right that we are not always obligated to violate our own principles or commitments in order to promote the greater good. But surely this idea has limits.
For, as critics of Williams have often said: When the consequences of one’s action or inaction get bad enough, following through for the sake of keeping one’s hands clean starts to seem self-indulgent. Indeed, even Williams admitted that you may sometimes be required to violate your principles for the greater good.
One take-home lesson of Williams’ view is that focusing on our “integrity” is the most justifiable when the action that we are being asked to take deeply violates our most central life commitments, and the cost of not acting is relatively low.
If, for instance, a vegan lifestyle were central to my self-identity and I found myself in a situation where my abstaining from eating meat would hurt my host’s feelings, plausibly I would be allowed to respectfully turn down the food. If, however, either the moral costs of turning down the food were much higher – for instance, if I were a peace ambassador to a foreign government host with thin skin and a finger on the nuclear launch button – or I was only toying with the idea of veganism, then my preferences would not play the same justificatory role.
For those who endorse claims 1 to 4, it’s likely the case both that the costs of not voting for Clinton are quite high, and that voting “for the best candidate” is not really such a deep commitment.
On the first point: If a Trump presidency would be as bad as predicted by claim 1, then failing to vote for the candidate who can stop him is contributing to what will likely be a massive, moral harm. While it’s true that each of us has but one vote to cast, in so casting it, we are participating in a collective action with serious moral consequences, and that makes our actions morally serious.
On the second point: Although voting for a candidate we dislike can feel dirty, my guess is that most of us don’t actually hold the ideal of voting for the very best candidate as a central, guiding commitment. Rather, we see voting as a thing we do, but not something that’s deeply tied to who we are. So voting in a way that “feels dirty” does not seem to rise to the level of undermining our integrity.
Those who are wrestling with whether to vote for Clinton out of fear of Trump are tapping into something real, then. They are distressed that a threat of bad consequences can undermine their freedom to choose as they please. But it is self indulgent, I would argue, to claim their integrity is on the line. If you believe Trump is a moral disaster, then you may well be obligated to vote for Clinton – even if that means getting your hands a little dirty.
Donald Trump's campaign rally in Kissimmee, Florida on Thursday was interrupted when a heckler accused him of sympathizing with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the bluntest of ways, The Hill reported.
"You love Russia. You're Putin's b*tch," the man reportedly shouted.
Footage of the incident picks up Trump's audio more clearly, as he tells the unidentified protester "goodbye" amid boos from the audience. Once the man was presumably removed, Trump said, "Where the hell did he come from?"
Last month, Trump publicly invited Russian hackers to go after Democrat Hillary Clinton, prompting criticism from intelligence officials, one of which said Putin had turned Trump into an "unwitting agent" for his country.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's campaign has settled a legal dispute with former aide Sam Nunberg, according to a court document filed in New York on Thursday.
Trump had sought $10 million in damages from Nunberg in arbitration proceedings. Trump accused Nunberg, who was fired in 2015, of violating a confidentiality agreement.
The one-page filing with a New York state court did not give the terms of the settlement.
Nunberg's attorney, Andrew Miltenberg, said "the matter was amicably resolved" but he declined to comment further. The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Nunberg said in court filings in July that Trump accused him of being the source for a New York Post story in May that recounted a public argument between Corey Lewandowski, who was then the campaign manager, and Hope Hicks, Trump's spokeswoman.
In the affidavit, Nunberg said the argument was part of a "sordid and apparently illicit affair" between the two. He denied being the source for the New York Post story.
Lewandowski was fired by the campaign in June, a move apparently unrelated to the Post story.
A Trump Organization lawyer, Alan Garten, last month called Nunberg's allegations "categorically untrue."
The Trump campaign fired Nunberg in August 2015 after the discovery of Facebook posts that critics deemed racist. Nunberg has denied he wrote the posts.
(Reporting by Eric Beech in Washington; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump acknowledged on Thursday that his campaign was struggling in Utah, a usually rock-solid Republican state, in a sign that party loyalists were still divided over whether to support him.
Trump made the comment in urging conservative Christian evangelicals to organize support for him in several key states where the Nov. 8 election is likely to be decided, such as Ohio, Florida and Virginia.
It came on a rare day of self-reflection for the wealthy New York businessman, who has suffered a number of self-inflicted wounds in recent days that have given the advantage in the campaign to Democrat Hillary Clinton.
"We're having a tremendous problem in Utah," Trump told a conference room filled with evangelical pastors, blaming a "false narrative" that has been built up around his candidacy.
A SurveyUSA opinion poll conducted for the Salt Lake Tribune in June showed Clinton and Trump tied. Other polls have given Trump a lead but not the type of advantage that previous Republican nominees have enjoyed in the state.
Trump, who is trailing Clinton in Virginia, a formerly Republican state that Democratic President Barack Obama won in 2008 and 2012, urged evangelicals to help him in that state as well.
In doing so, Trump pledged to rewrite the so-called Johnson Amendment, the 1954 change in the U.S. tax code that prohibits church leaders from using the pulpit for political purposes.
"If we get those people to vote, we're going to win in Virginia," he said. "If they don't vote, it's not going to happen."
Trump also said "we need help in Ohio," the state where he held his Republican National Convention last month.
Ohio Governor John Kasich, who lost to Trump in the Republican primary race, has refused to endorse Trump.
"We're very close in Ohio, but we need help," Trump said.
Trump has seen a steady stream of moderate Republicans vow not to support him, such as U.S. Senator Susan Collins of Maine, and 50 Republican national security experts signed a letter opposing him.
All this is evidence of fissures in the party over the bellicose rhetoric and positions of Trump, who on Wednesday called Obama "the founder of ISIS," the acronym for Islamic State, and Clinton "the co-founder."
Trump joked that winning the White House and doing a good job as president might be his only way to salvation.
"So go out and spread the words and once I get in, I will do the thing that I do very well," said Trump with a smile. “I figure it’s probably maybe the only way I’m going to get to heaven, so I better do a good job.”
(Reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
We're in the middle of August, but Republican panic over their presidential nominee is already setting in.
Politico reports that more than 70 prominent Republicans -- including several former GOP senators and congressmen -- have written a letter begging RNC chairman Reince Priebus to pull the plug on Trump's campaign and instead spend all their resources protecting down-ballot Republican senators and representatives.
"We believe that Donald Trump’s divisiveness, recklessness, incompetence, and record-breaking unpopularity risk turning this election into a Democratic landslide," reads the letter, which was signed by big names such as former Sen. Gordon Humphrey and former Rep. Chris Shays. "Only the immediate shift of all available RNC resources to vulnerable Senate and House races will prevent the GOP from drowning with a Trump-emblazoned anchor around its neck."
As if that weren't enough, Republican strategist Matt Mackowiak on Thursday posted an epic tweetstorm describing the abject panic that has set in among Republicans, who now fear that they'll suffer massive down-ballot losses if Trump stays on his current course.
"OK, this shit's not funny anymore," he began. "Trump is threatening elected GOPers at all levels in places that haven't been competitive in decades... We are looking at an extinction-level event."
Among other things, Mackowiak ripped Trump for continuing to campaign in Connecticut when any hope of winning that state is long gone. He also said that Trump needs to dial back his rallies and TV interviews, and spend an average of 20 hours a week doing preparation for the fall debates.
Does that sound like something Trump would really agree to? Probably not, but Mackowiak insisted that Trump had to do it anyway.
"You can't overstate panic inside GOP currently," he said.
Donald Trump was given an opportunity to clean up his assertion that President Obama is the "founder of ISIS" on Thursday... and he declined.
Right-wing radio host Hugh Hewitt asked Trump on Thursday if he meant that Obama founded ISIS metaphorically -- that is, because he pulled out of Iraq, it created a power vacuum that was filled by ISIS.
"No, I meant he’s the founder of ISIS," was Trump's reply.
CNN subsequently had Trump surrogate Michael Burgess on to talk about Trump's remarks, and the Texas Republican congressman tried to argue that Trump was really talking about the power vacuum that was created when U.S. troops withdrew from Iraq.
But then co-host Kate Bolduan read out the full quote to Burgess and he had no idea how to respond.
"This is exactly what was asked," Bolduan began. "Hugh Hewitt said, 'I know what you meant, you meant he created the vacuum, he lost the peace.' Donald Trump says, 'No, I meant he's the founder of ISIS. I do.'"
For a painful five seconds, Burgess sat in total silence before coming up with a reply.
"Again, I think it's a distinction, a difference looking for a distinction," he said. "But the cauldron was, was set, the, the, the dials were all twisted in the proper direction to allow this to happen... I'm no expert in Middle Eastern affairs."
John Berman then asked Burgess what Donald Trump's plan to beat ISIS was -- and more stammering ensued.
"Well, look, I, I," Burgess began before pausing for another three seconds. "As far as the battle of ISIS is concerned, the Congress actually needs to take the next steps, and that would be an authorization of military force."
Put another way, Burgess has no idea what Trump's plan to beat ISIS is.
