Breaking News
National Review Won’t Mess With Trump Again
- The RNC has ended a debate partnership with National Review magazine after they dedicated their latest issue to opposing Donald Trump.
- The National Review was founded by William F. Buckley in 1955 and is a highly regarded conservative magazine.
- This also marks a shift in the RNC bending towards Trump where in the past they have opposed him as the candidate.
- The magazine said they were aware of the timing and that it would cause friction, but found the cause worthy of the price.
The Republican National Committee has ended a debate partnership with National Review after the venerable conservative magazine devoted its new issue to a “symposium” of reasons why voters should reject Donald Trump's presidential campaign.
“We expected this was coming,” the magazine's publisher Jack Fowler wrote in a blog post late Thursday night, just 90 minutes after the symposium went live. “Small price to pay for speaking the truth about The Donald.”
RNC spokesman Sean Spicer Fowler's account of events, and added in a comment to Buzzfeed's Rosie Gray that “a debate moderator can't have a predisposition.” That leaves CNN, Salem Radio, and Telemundo as the co-sponsors of the planned February 25 forum in Houston.
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The idea of bringing conservative media into the debates had actually come from RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, who has repeatedly blamed a loose, easily-exploited approach to the media for a “circus” that hurt eventual 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney.
“I mean, there's a lot of good people out there that can actually understand the base of the Republican Party, the primary voters,” Priebus told Fox News in an August 2013 interview. “There are some people in our party that think that — you know, on immigration, have different views. On the issue of tactics, on the funding of Obamacare — I mean you can very easily parse that out in a way that actually provides some substance to the Republican primary voters and what they actually want to talk about and understand.”
Yet a clash of egos and interest has now stymied several attempts to bring conservative media into the debates. While Salem Radio's Hugh Hewitt, considered one of the best interviewers on the right, has made two appearances as a CNN debate co-panelist, a forum co-hosted by the Washington Times and Liberty University never got past the planning stage.
In an interview early Friday morning, National Review's editor-in-chief Rich Lowry said that the magazine knew it was risking a debate snub when work on the Trump package began. “We priced it in,” he said, describing an editorial process that began shortly after the Christmas holiday. “We wanted to push back against this notion that it was just the establishment that was opposed to Trump, so we assembled this group of people who nobody can accuse of being the establishment. We actually wanted this to be the first issue of the year, but we held it. That timing just turned out to be fortuitous, with the establishment parts of the party suddenly bending his way.”
In a tweet, symposium contributor and Commentary editor-in-chief John Podhoretz confirmed Lowry's account.
National Review, founded in 1955 by William F. Buckley, has frequently policed the conservative movement and warned against the influence of populist movements. In 1962, Buckley devoted 5000 words to the John Birch Society, attempting to write it out of the movement and calling its founder Robert Welch “far removed from common sense.” Twenty-nine years later, Buckley wrote 40,000 words — an entire issue of the magazine — to condemn what he saw as anti-Semitism festering on the right, personified in Pat Buchanan, who was then mounting the first of three unsuccessful presidential bids.
Those essays, if not often read again in full, are often viewed with nostalgia. In 2012, after Romney's defeat, the former RNC research director David Welch bemoaned the lack of strong conservative voices who could police the movement.
“We need ‘the Establishment,'” he wrote in a piece for the New York Times. “We need officials like former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida and Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey.”
Trump, who now leads both of those men in primary polls, had praised Buckley as recently as last week. “Conservatives actually do come out of Manhattan — including William F. Buckley,” said Trump at the Republican presidential debate in Charleston, after Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) derided the “New York values” of liberalism.
On Thursday night, in a series of characteristically impassioned tweets, Trump suggested that Lowry's National Review had lost the spirit of Buckley.
By David Weigel
15 Comments
They are realizing he is the only answer.
his great
They have constitutional right to express their view point, as I do, also, am not comfortable with Trump, I listen to him and he is a worse narcissist then Obama, and he does not have a record of trying to protect our constitutional rights, as one other candidate.
They are messing with the Trumpster and took the wrong road to travel They shall fail
It’s simple: The GOP is no longer conservative! Also, the Republicans elected last election promised to fight for many things which they failed to do; even with a Senate majority. I, personally, am ashamed of and furious with the GOP. Trump offers a breath of fresh air if he can or will deliver. No other GOP candidAte has his “fire in the belly.” The GOP has had its day and needs to be replaced by a “conservative” party.
The best thing the RNC has done in a long time.
Trump is so far ahead of these silly National Review writers. There story has backfired on them badly. I will never read another NR article again.
I think the NR is being stupid. Join the fight! Some times Americans come first. I don’t think they care one whet about us! They only care about their idea of what they think conservatives should be and do.
All we have from Trump is the same kind of narcissism and bombast that we got from Obama; a lot of pie-in-the-sky claims and promises and rhetoric about how bad everything is. I maintain the only intelligent way to choose a candidate is to look at what they have done in regard to our Constitution. Fool us once, shame on them. Fool us twice (2012), shame on us. Fool us the third time?: We’re doomed.
WHY won’t the National Review mess with Donald Trump again???!!! The Jerk NEEDS to be messed with. I’LL mess with him anytime I like, he’s no threat to me or anyone else, he thinks he’s a tough guy….NOT SO MUCH…..LMFAOI!!!
The National Review, is now a National disgrace. God Bless America again, And God Bless Donald Trump !
I want to hear the truth, not what someone else wants me to hear.
they are out of their f’in minds
trump is neither a dem nor agop. Trump also is not a lib nor a consv. TRUMP IS UNITED STATE OF AMERICA CITIZEN WHO LOVE HIS COUNTRY BEING DESTROY BY OBAMA AND THE DEMONS CRETS . HE SAID HE WANTED TO MAKE IT GREAT AGAIN/ I BELIVED HIM I’m an indepented but vote conservite all my life I am a 75 year old Polynesia/white/samoan I live in las vegas. I changefrom ind. to gop so I ca vote trump in the primary f aafatai/thank you FAIFAILEMU
NR picked the wrong fight. They have met their match, and more. They do have a right to express their opinion, but there will be a backlash from the ever growing multitude of people supporting Trump. Those who are angry at the way the country is heading, and has gone, including conservatives who read the NR, may just see to the demise of this magazine. NR shot themselves in the foot!