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GOP Partymates Try To Derail Donald Trump’s Presidential Ambitions

By Val Powell
Published on: 20:34 PST, Jun 22, 2016

Donald Trump’s problems continue to mount with declining presidential ratings, low campaign funds, and now, his own party planning to take him down. Describing their campaign as “anybody but Trump,” Republican convention delegates are moving to derail the party’s presumptive presidential nominee during their summer meetings.

The last time he was interviewed by the New York Times, the billionaire was asked about his plunging popularity with American voters. Donald Trump’s recent statements following the Orlando shooting, wherein he reiterated the need to ban Muslims from entering America, drew some flak. At the same time, he also called President Obama a weak leader, while casting aspersions on a federal judge for being Hispanic

In fact, House Speaker Paul Ryan even described Trump’s attacks on Gonzalo P. Curiel of United States District Court as “racist.” He, however, is not withdrawing his support for the presumptive GOP nominee, because he doesn’t think that Hillary Clinton is the answer.

However, Donald Trump dismissed his fluctuating survey numbers because “I have tremendous Republican support.”

“Unfortunately, they never talk about that, they talk about the few rebels,” he added.

Donald Trump might be referring to the campaign being led by Kendal Unruh of Colorado and a growing number of disgruntled delegates.

“This literally is an ‘Anybody but Trump’ movement,” he said. “Nobody has any idea who is going to step in and be the nominee, but we’re not worried about that. We’re just doing that job to make sure that he’s not the face of our party.”

According to Yahoo, the first time that a meeting was called to discuss the move to oust Donald Trump as the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, only about 30 delegates showed up. However, a second conference call scheduled on Sunday night reportedly counted about 1,000 people. The hardcore movers are calling themselves “Free the Delegates.”

The report said that, although the GOP convention delegates can submit their nomination in Cleveland and they won’t be breaking any law, the primary results do hang heavily on the results. And they are also battling a long-held tradition, as well as the perception that they are, indeed, breaking the rules.

That didn’t deter Unruh and the other delegates, however, and one of the novel suggestions was to introduce what they call a “conscience clause” by which to measure each of the nominees of the party.

“Such a clause would say that every delegate is free to vote his or her conscience on the first ballot — even if state laws or party rules say otherwise,” it said.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump seemed to be unconcerned by the new move to oust him as the GOP presidential nominee as he boasted of his 14 million votes, a record for the Republican primary.

“I have tremendous support and get the biggest crowds by far and any such move would not only be totally illegal but also a rebuke of the millions of people who feel so strongly about what I am saying,” he said.

Nevertheless, Donald Trump appears to have gotten the message about the threats within his party, as well as the declining numbers.

Just recently, he fired his campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and promised to launch a very different campaign, which has been wracked with in-fighting between Team Lewandowski and Team Paul Manafort.

The hand seems to have tipped in favor of Manafort after Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka and husband, Jared Kushner, threw their support behind the veteran operator.

“We’re going to go a different route,” Donald Trump told Bill O’Reilly on his Fox TV program, as he described Lewandowski as “a good man.”

[Photo by Ralph Freso/Getty Images]

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