Graham: Nominating ‘Race-Baiting Religious Bigot’ Trump Would Irreparably Damage GOP

The New York Times has a new report out today about the panic and nervousness spreading throughout the establishment GOP that Donald Trump could actually become the Republican nominee for president. And they’re not just worried about losing the White House, they’re worried about losing in more local races.

Some Republicans are worried Trump being on the national ticket would hurt party nominees in state and local races, and so they’re trying to figure out how best to take him down.

The problem, Jonathan Martin reports, is that absolutely no one is willing to start publicly attacking Trump, though a few did go on record to the Times about how devastating a Trump nomination would be.

And then there’s Lindsey Graham, one of Trump’s presidential rivals. He hasn’t done terribly well in the polls thus far, but he’s been very consistently critical of Trump, and now he’s laying out this dire warning:

“It would be an utter, complete and total disaster. If you’re a xenophobic, race-baiting, religious bigot, you’re going to have a hard time being president of the United States, and you’re going to do irreparable damage to the party… If they [the GOP] don’t push back, they’ll have nobody to blame but themselves.”

But Trump clearly doesn’t care about any of this, because as he’s demonstrated over and over, he relishes being a target of the establishment.

[image via screengrab]

— —

Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!