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Sour Grapes: Donald Trump Blames ‘The System’ For His Losses In Delegate Races

By Val Powell
Published on: 21:06 PST, Apr 13, 2016

After losing in Colorado, GOP candidate Donald Trump said that the political system is “stacked against” him and then alleged the Republican Party is working against him.

During a CNN town hall in New York City, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper asked the Republican presidential candidate how rival Ted Cruz defeated him despite him leading the surveys in previous months.

“The bottom line is the rules are the rules. Didn’t you just get outplayed on the ground?” Cooper asked Trump.

The billionaire explained that he was leading but “the Colorado thing is unfair.” Trump was devastated after losing to Cruz at a party convention in Colorado this weekend. The Republican candidate further complained about Cruz’s “shenanigans” in Louisiana, another state where the senator crushed the Trump campaign.

“You call them ‘shenanigans.’ Those are the rules. And didn’t you know those rules?” asked Cooper.

“I know the rules very well. But I know that it’s stacked against me by the establishment. I fully understand it,” Trump claimed.

When the anchor pointed out that he could have had “better organization on the ground,” Trump said it would not matter since the rules were “set in stone.” Even after Cooper explained that Cruz put a lot of effort to win delegates in Colorado, the business mogul reiterated that the rules were “stacked against him.” Cruz winning the elections in Colorado was the result of establishment Republicans sabotaging his campaign, Trump said.

He went on to say that changing the rules robbed him of the chance of winning Colorado. He claimed they changed the rules because they were afraid he was winning.

“You know why they changed the rules? Because they saw how I was doing and they didn’t like it.”

Responding to his remarks about the nomination process, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus tweeted on Tuesday evening.

Trump’s comments about the “unfair” selection process fueled his dispute with Priebus, whom he called a “disgrace to the party” during an interview with The Hill on Tuesday.

“It’s a disgrace for the party. And Reince Priebus should be ashamed of himself,” the GOP candidate said just hours before his CNN town hall appearance. “He should be ashamed of himself because he knows what’s going on.”

The Donald Trump campaign is not holding back in accusing the RNC of working against him and supporting his rival in an effort to divert the attention from their organizational failures. During a campaign event in New York, where he is expected to win next Tuesday’s delegate race, the business mogul once again blasted the RNC’s process of selecting a nominee, saying the system is “rigged.”

“Our Republican system is absolutely rigged. It’s a phony deal,” he said, accusing the party leaders of keeping his supporters out of the process to make sure he loses. Donald Trump called the party’s rules a “dirty trick,” adding the RNC “should be ashamed of itself.”

Trump critics noticed that Trump has a habit of claiming fraud whenever his rivals defeat him in elections. He previously accused Ted Cruz of stealing votes in Iowa and alleged that Cruz deceived Carson voters into voting for the senator after spreading a rumor that Carson was dropping out of the race.

Donald Trump’s strategy of instilling doubt about the political system allows the Trump campaign to shift the attention away from his losses in delegate elections including Colorado, Iowa, and North Dakota, his critics said.

[Photo by Julie Jacobson/AP Images]

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