‘Morning Joe’ host Joe Scarborough explains why he’s leaving GOP
“Morning Joe” host and former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough is blaming the GOP’s loyalty to President Donald Trump and its failure to live up to its promises for his decision to leave the party and become an independent. Scarborough first announced the switch during an interview with CBS “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert on Tuesday night. He appeared as a guest with his co-host and fiancee, Mika Brzezinski, who recently was attacked in sharply personal terms by the Republican president. On Wednesday’s “Morning Joe,” Scarborough accused Republicans of abandoning their fiscal principles. He also referred to Trump, saying Republicans are “kowtowing to somebody who — inexplicably — shows them no loyalty whatsoever.” Scarborough was elected to four U.S. House terms from Florida starting in 1994. Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe’ sets viewership mark after tweets
Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski reached their biggest audience ever when they talked Friday about President Donald Trump’s tweets about their show. The Nielsen company said Wednesday that 1.66 million people watched the MSNBC morning show the day after the tweets. That narrowly beat the show’s previous record, which came the day after Trump was elected last year. Trump, in denouncing the show last week, wrote that Brzezinski was “bleeding badly from a facelift” when he saw them around the New Year. Friday’s “Morning Joe” proved more popular than Trump’s favorite morning show, “Fox & Friends.” Even Trump tweeted that he watched “Morning Joe” on Friday. So far this year, “Morning Joe” is averaging 896,000 viewers, typically running second behind Fox News Channel’s morning show. Scarborough and Brzezinski delayed a holiday vacation to address Trump’s tweets on Friday. Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
Donald Trump campaign head says jail threat was a quip
The Latest on the U.S. presidential race (all times EDT): 8:55 a.m. Mike Pence is standing by Donald Trump, saying he never considered leaving the Trump ticket. Following the latest presidential debate, Pence said Monday that he believes Trump is sorry for the crude and predatory language about women captured in a 2005 video that became public last week. Pence told Fox News that Trump “stepped up” during the debate: “He showed humility. He showed strength. He expressed genuine contrition for the words he had used” in the video. He later told CNN that he never considered dropping off Trump’s ticket. He said: “It’s the greatest honor of my life.” 7:30 a.m. Donald Trump’s campaign manager is walking back the Republican candidate’s threat during presidential debate to throw Hillary Clinton in jail if he is elected. Kellyanne Conway said Monday that such a decision isn’t up to Trump. She said Trump’s threat “was a quip.” Trump made the threat in Sunday’s debate, after Clinton said it’s good that someone with Trump’s temperament isn’t president. Trump responded: “Because you’d be in jail.” Conway, speaking on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” also stopped short of confirming Trump’s vow to appoint a special prosecutor to look into Clinton’s email practices if he becomes president. Conway said Trump was “channeling the frustration of thousands of voters he hears every day.” 3:30 a.m. Donald Trump is leaving no doubt that he’ll spend the election’s final weeks dredging up decades-old sexual allegations against Hillary Clinton’s husband, even if it turns off voters whose support he desperately needs. Faced with questions in Sunday’s debate about his own predatory remarks about women, Trump accused Bill Clinton of having been “abusive to women” and said Hillary Clinton attacked those women “viciously.” He declared the Democratic nominee had “tremendous hate in her heart.” Clinton tried at times to take the high road, glossing over Trump’s charges and accusing him of trying to distract from his political troubles. Indeed, Trump entered the debate facing enormous pressure from the Republican Party and even his own running mate. Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
Hillary Clinton talks teamwork in wake of Orlando tragedy
Hillary Clinton on Monday said that the Orlando nightclub massacre called for “statesmanship, not partisanship.” The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee spoke on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program. “This is a moment for Republicans, Democrats and Independents to work together as one team,” she said, according to a rush transcript. “The American team.” “I think that our fellow American citizens expect that … I remember we all came together as one nation after 9/11 and we should recapture that spirit,” she added. A gunman with a AR-15 assault rifle opened fire inside Pulse Orlando, a popular gay nightclub, early Sunday morning. Police say 49 people were killed, and another 53 were seriously injured. The shooter has been identified as Omar Mateen of Fort Pierce. He was killed at the scene. Authorities say Mateen called 911 during the attack and pledged allegiance to the Islamic State terror group, also known as ISIS. “You know, let’s have a very clear, rational discussion about what we do right and what we can improve on and how we’re going to protect Americans both from the threats of terrorism and ISIS, how we’re going to defeat ISIS and how we’re going to try to save people’s lives from the epidemic of gun violence now that we’re seeing terrorists use these assault weapons,” Clinton said. “That has to be part of the debate,” she said. The clip can be viewed here.
New Jeb Bush ad uses Rick Santorum’s stumble to take a shot at Marco Rubio
Jeb Bush is jumping on Rick Santorum’s inability to name an accomplishment of Marco Rubio, using the footage of in a new television advertisement. As first reported by CNN, the 60-second spot will start running in New Hampshire on Saturday. The advertisement features clips from an interview with Santorum on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Thursday. During the interview, Santorum struggles to name something Rubio had done during his first term in the Senate. After showing about 30 seconds of Santorum fumbling through the interview, Sean Hannity is heard interviewing Bush and rattling off a list of his accomplishments during his time in the governor’s mansion. “I was a reform-minded conservative. I did cut taxes every year. I balanced budgets every year. When I left, there were $9 billion in reserves, we reduced the state government workforce by 13,000,” the former Florida governor is shown saying in the advertisement. “My record, I think, shows the path of what could happen in Washington, D.C.” NEW AD: My conservative record of accomplishments vs. @MarcoRubio’s record of doing nothing in the Senate.https://t.co/vKbtrVGlmF — Jeb Bush (@JebBush) February 5, 2016 The advertisement is the second as many days using the Morning Joe footage. On Thursday, Chris Christie released a 30-second spot based on the interview. Recent polls show Rubio gaining ground in the Granite State. A NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll has Rubio in second place in New Hampshire with 17 percent. The survey found Bush was at 9 percent and Christie was at 4 percent.
Jeb Bush says Donald Trump ‘doesn’t have a plan’
Republican presidential candidate and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush says frontrunner Donald Trump didn’t come off as a strong leader on national security issues during Tuesday night’s debate. Bush appeared via satellite link on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program on Wednesday morning. The candidates participated in the fifth GOP debate, hosted by CNN, in Las Vegas. “We got to talk about substantive issues, about the future of our country and how we can keep our country safe and secure, and it was a commander-in-chief debate in many ways,” Bush said. “I don’t know if the front-running candidate fared that well in that kind of context. “You need a leader that can listen to people and draw people together to be able to create a strategy to keep us safe,” he added. “And his policies, what he’s advocated, just won’t do it. And I was pleased to be able to point that out and we had some exchanges that I think I won.” Host Joe Scarborough asked Bush where he thought he scored the most points. “Well, the simple fact is he doesn’t have a plan; he’s not a serious candidate,” Bush said. “…His policies aren’t serious proposals, and he didn’t offer anything compelling in response to that. And I offered, as did other candidates, significant, detailed proposals to protect the homeland.” But Bush still trails in fifth place in the polls with 5 percent, compared to Trump’s 38 percent, according to the latest Huffington Post survey average. He noted that Iowa voters are “latched on to a particular candidate today but by February 1st when the caucuses start they could easily vote for somebody else.” “Similarly, in New Hampshire, the exact same phenomenon takes place,” he said. “This is a wide open race … If you go campaign hard in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, you can move the needle and that’s exactly what I intend to do. “I want to make the case that I am ready from day one to be President of the United States and that I will keep our country safe, and that I have the detailed policies to make sure that’s the case,” Bush said. “As people get a sense of my determination to do that, I think I’m going to move up in the polls.” Trump, appearing last night on MSNBC’s Hardball, continued to rule out an independent run and said he would support the GOP nominee if he loses. “I would do that, with enthusiasm,” Trump told host Chris Matthews. “I mean, I’ve gotten to know most of them pretty well. I like a lot of them. I can’t say I love everybody but I like a lot of them. And I respect quite a few of them.”
Josh Earnest gives props to Obama administration for Paris attacks response
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest credited President Obama‘s “early investment in our military and our intelligence” that put the French “in a position to carry out this kind of response” to last week’s Paris attacks. Earnest spoke Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program. “The United States and France has been for some time working to deepen our military and intelligence cooperation when it comes to Syria,” Earnest said. “And we have done that and we followed through on that. “And it is because of that cooperation and because of the kind of logistical support that only the United States can provide, that France is actually even in a position to ramp up the strikes that they took,” he added. “So we’re seeing the fruits of (President Obama’s) early investment based on the France carrying out these actions.” For example, also Wednesday, police raided a suburban Paris apartment where they believed the suspected mastermind of last week’s attacks was holed up. The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility. Wednesday’s operation ended with two deaths and seven arrests but no clear information on the fugitive’s fate. The dead included a woman who blew herself up with an explosive vest and a man hit by projectiles and grenades at the end of a seven-hour siege in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis. “I think what is also true, what you’ve also seen, is the United States use all of our law enforcement and intelligence resources to assist the French as they carry out their investigation and even conduct some of the law enforcement activities that they’ve been engaged in,” Earnest said. “So we are committed to being sure that we are standing shoulder to shoulder with our oldest ally as they confront this threat on their own soil,” he said. “There should be no denying the fact that the only reason that the French are in a position to carry out this kind of response is because of the early investment in our military and our intelligence that the President ordered more than a year ago.” But former FBI special agent Clint van Zandt told U.S. News & World Report on Tuesday that France’s heavy response doesn’t necessarily mean Islamic State won’t try to attack within the United States. ” … I think it’s a logical escalation for them to do,” van Zandt told the magazine. “If one wants to expand their base of recruits, one of the ways you do it is showing success.” The video can be watched here: https://on.msnbc.com/1PzKOFr The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Rivals unmoved by Ben Carson’s complaints on scrutiny of his bio
Ben Carson says it’s time to move on from questions about the accuracy of his life story. But Tuesday’s Republican debate makes that unlikely, and some of his GOP rivals say such scrutiny is part of running for president. The retired neurosurgeon said Sunday that questions about discrepancies in his autobiography are distractions from “much more important” matters facing the country and that he’d discuss any “real” scandal uncovered about his past. He strongly disputed any dishonesty or wrongdoing. “Every single day, every other day or every week, you know, they’re going to come out with, ‘Well, you said this when you were 13,’ ” Carson said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday. “The whole point is to distract the populace, to distract me,” he added. Carson got no sympathy Monday from a pair of Republicans who are trailing him in the presidential polls and said they had endured years of personal scrutiny as governors. “We’re responsible for the personal stories we tell about our lives and we need to be asked about them,” New Jersey Gov. [Chris] Christie said about Carson on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” Mike Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor, said when he heard Carson’s complaints about the media, “I’m thinking pal, you ain’t seen nothing yet.” “You know that if you run for office you’re going to be put through the sausage grinder,” Huckabee told MSNBC. Moving on, at least in the short term, is unlikely for Carson. The accuracy of his autobiography has dominated his campaign in the past few days, and more questions are likely during Tuesday’s debate. The intensified questioning reflects Carson’s transformation from political outsider to the top of the polls in the unsettled nomination fight, second only to billionaire developer Donald Trump. And in early-voting Iowa, some polls show Carson leading. Trump tried Sunday to keep the allegations alive. On several news shows, he mentioned examples from Carson’s autobiography, “Gifted Hands,” about Carson’s bad temper when he was young. Carson claimed that he tried to hit his mother with a hammer and unsuccessfully tried to stab someone. Several times, Trump quoted Carson as describing his younger self as having a “pathological” temper — and then demurred on his own opinion of Carson’s character and veracity. “I just don’t know. I mean, I’m not involved. I don’t really know,” Trump said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” Carson insists no other candidate has received the level of scrutiny that he has. Asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” whether he is being scrutinized more than President Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton, Carson replied: “Not like this. Not even close.” Republican Party chairman Reince Priebus criticized the intense questioning Monday, saying that while he considers candidate vetting by the media appropriate, “I do believe this is a totally, crazy obsession over incredible detail from 30 or 40 years ago.” “The fact is, you know, we wish the media would be just as obsessed with Hillary Clinton’s lies over the years,” Priebus said in an interview on NBC’s “Today” show. Scrutiny of one’s past is par for any major candidate for president. Obama’s citizenship was questioned, including by Trump, and the president later released a birth certificate showing he was born in Hawaii. Clinton’s marital dalliances were probed during the 1992 campaign. The Miami Herald staked out then-Sen. Gary Hart‘s townhouse in 1987 and caught him in an extramarital affair. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, last month testified about the private email server she kept at her house and used for government business while she was secretary of state. Carson is a newcomer to presidential politics, so much about his life, career and published works are being raked over for the first time, and his longtime status as an American success story is being examined. Carson strongly disputed that there was any dishonesty intended. Gone Sunday was the anger he showed during a news conference on Friday, when the usually even-tempered Carson demanded that reporters explain why, in his opinion, Obama had not been subjected to the same level of scrutiny. “My job is to call you out when you’re unfair, and I’m going to continue to do that,” he said. “Gifted Hands” is central to much of the scrutiny. It tells the story of Carson’s rise from a childhood in inner-city Detroit to director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. In it, he tells of trying to stab a close friend when he was a teenager. CNN reported it could not find friends or confidants to corroborate that story. Politico published a piece examining Carson’s claim of receiving a scholarship offer to attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The Wall Street Journal said it could not confirm Carson’s anecdotes from his high school and college years. The academy does not offer scholarships, instead extending all expenses paid to students it admits. Carson never applied for admission. Last month, police in Baltimore said they didn’t have enough information to verify Carson’s account of being held at gunpoint at a fast-food restaurant there more than 30 years ago. In a GOP debate last month, Carson said it was “absolutely absurd” to say he had a formal relationship with the medical supplement company Mannatech. He is featured in the firm’s videos, including one from last year in which he credits its supplements with helping people restore a healthy diet. Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
No whining: Chris Christie shrugs off boot from debate main stage
Chris Christie just can’t catch a break. In the middle of what had been shaping up to be among the best weeks of his campaign for president, the Republican governor of New Jersey was kicked to the “kiddie table” when Fox Business Network said he didn’t have the poll numbers needed to qualify for Tuesday’s prime-time debate. The relegation to the undercard is the latest blow for Christie, who has struggled to emerge in a packed field led by political newcomers — most notably billionaire real estate mogul Donald Trump, who has effectively stolen Christie’s tell-it-like-it-is calling card. “Did I want to throw something at the television? Yes,” said Bobbie Kilberg, one of Christie’s most loyal financial backers. But Kilberg was among the many Christie supporters who — familiar with political setbacks — said the decision would only increase their resolve and spur them to work harder to bring in the cash needed to keep Christie’s campaign going. The demotion came as Christie, whose very early front-runner status was crushed by a scandal involving aides creating traffic jams on a bridge into Manhattan, appeared on the cusp of a breakthrough thanks to a video published by The Huffington Post that shows him talking about the pain of losing a friend to drug addiction. While Christie has told the story dozens of times at town hall events, the video went viral and had been viewed more than 7.6 million times as of Sunday evening. The response to the video underscores Christie’s raw political talent: he undoubtedly has the ability to connect with an audience in ways many of his rivals cannot. After weeks of focus on New Hampshire, his standing in some preference polls there has improved recently. Christie has also seen substantial gains in his favorability ratings, both nationally as well as in Iowa, where his team is hoping a stronger-than-expected showing will position him to win New Hampshire. Meanwhile, Christie has tried to play down the impact of getting booted from the main stage of the fourth GOP primary debate. Monday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Christie tried to put a positive spin on the downgrade, saying, “I’ll be on a stage where I’m going to get a lot more time to talk.” And he said the true winnowing of the field will take place later, in Iowa and New Hampshire. “We’re Not Whiners, Or Moaners, Or Complainers In The Christie Campaign,” read the subject line of one email blast from his campaign. Speaking Friday in New Hampshire, where he filed to appear on the state’s primary ballot, Christie said what matters is his message. “I’ve never had difficulty making an impression. I’ll make an impression on Tuesday night, too, just like I have in the first three debates,” he said. “We are fine,” echoed Christie senior adviser Mike DuHaime in an email. “We don’t make the rules, just play by them. Our supporters and donors know that Gov. Christie has overcome a lot more than being switched to a different stage.” Some Christie supporters have gone further and tried to put a positive spin on his debate downgrade, arguing that appearing on the less crowded stage will give the governor more opportunity to make his case to viewers. “He’ll get a lot more time. He’ll get a lot more attention,” said Jim McConaha, a Republican from Concord, New Hampshire, who came to watch Christie file his paperwork. “It’s better than standing at the end of the row, leaning on the podium waiting for your opportunity to say something.” Kilberg said the downgrade was sparking new commitments from previously on-the-fence donors angry at Christie’s treatment. “People are calling me and saying, ‘this is ridiculous,’ ” she said. “People are even more energized.” Yet the decision still has the potential to set back Christie. Many believe he missed his chance to be president four years ago when he declined to run, saying he wasn’t ready for the White House. Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry saw his fundraising essentially disappear after he was relegated to an undercard debate earlier in the year. He left the race soon after. Iowa-based Jamie Johnson, who served as senior director to the Perry campaign and is not affiliated with any candidate now, said Christie still has a chance to build on the momentum that Johnson says he’s seeing in the state. “If there was ever a candidate who was a fighter and could find a way to bounce back after being demoted to the secondary debate forum,” he said, “it’s Chris Christie.” Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
Lindsey Graham on MSNBC: ‘How am I losing to these people?’
Republican presidential candidate Lindsey Graham boggled at his competition Monday, wondering how he was trailing at 11th place in the polls. “How am I losing to these people?” he said, during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program, during which he also called former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush “whiny.” “Just look at Donald Trump‘s foreign policy. What is it?” Graham said. “What is he going to do about (Islamic State)? What is it? What is it? What is his game plan to destroy ISIL? Does anybody know? “…(T)o substitute Trump for Obama, what’s the difference?” he added. “When it comes to Syria, what’s the difference between any of our own candidates and Barack Obama?” Graham, a U.S. senator from South Carolina since 2003, stands at 0.8 percent, according to Huffington Post’s average of polls for the 2016 national Republican primary. Panelist John Heilemann of Bloomberg Politics referred to Trump and pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who also has never held elective office, and asked what it said about the GOP “that those two guys are the consistent top tier at this point, in this late point, in the Republican nominating contest?” “This outsider phenomenon is so bad that we have to get somebody new and different, not tainted by the process,” Graham said. “But here is what I think. I think experience will begin to matter the closer we get to the election. “Does it matter if you have any experience to be commander in chief?” he said. “Like, Ben Carson said he would have declared energy independence as the reactions of 9/11. That’s kind of different. You know, ‘I hereby declare,’ you know, bullhorn out here at the World Trade Center, ‘I hereby declare energy independence’ is not what I would be looking for. “Dr. Carson is a fine man, but his foreign policy is hard for me to follow,” Graham said. Graham later was asked about Bush’s “tone (and) presence on the campaign trail.” “It did come across as a bit whiny,” Graham said. “At the end of the day, I think Jeb is a very viable candidate; he is reengineering his campaign.” Last week, Bush decided to significantly cut his campaign spending, including staff pay decreases. He is currently at fourth in the polls among GOP contenders, trailing behind Trump, Carson and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. “For all of us if we don’t step up our game on the establishment side, whatever you want to call it, and start challenging these guys more effectively, I think we’re letting the cause down because Donald Trump will get killed in a general election … Hillary Clinton will mop up the floor with this guy.” The video can be watched here.
Donald Trump on Oregon shootings: “You’re always going to have problems”
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Friday said the most recent campus shooting in Oregon could have happened anywhere, adding that there are already “very strong laws on the books” to address gun violence. Trump joined MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program by phone – his 13th time on the show, either in person or on the phone, since declaring himself a candidate for 2016. He spoke the day after a 26-year-old man walked into a morning class at Umpqua Community College in rural Oregon and opened fire, hitting some students with multiple gunshots. At least nine people were killed and seven others were wounded. Co-host Willie Geist asked Trump what he would have done if the shooting happened under his presidency, noting that Oregon has universal background checks. “Well first of all, you have very strong laws on the books, but you’re always going to have problems,” Trump said. “I mean, we have millions and millions of people. We have millions of sick people all over the world. It can happen all over the world. “And it does happen all over the world, by the way, but this is sort of unique to this country, the school shootings, and you’re going to have difficulty no matter what,” he added. “I mean … probably we’ll find out with him, like we did with numerous of the others, that gee whiz, they were loners and they were probably sick. “You know, oftentimes this happens and the neighborhood says, you know, we sort of saw that about him and it really looked like he could be a problem. But it’s awfully hard to put somebody in an institution for the rest of their lives based on the fact he looks like he could be a problem. So it’s a terrible situation, it’s huge mental illness. You’re going to have these things happen and it’s a horrible thing to behold.” Geist asked, “So Donald, is it fair to say then that your opinion is some people are going to slip through the cracks and there’s not much you can do about it?” Trump responded, “… People are going to slip through the cracks and even if you did great mental health programs, people are going to slip through the cracks … What are you going to do? Institutionalize everybody? So you’re going to have difficulties … with many different things, not just this. That’s the way the world works. And by the way, that’s the way the world always has worked, Willie.” Trump also addressed remarks about him by Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton, discussed whether Congressman Kevin McCarthy should be the next speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, and sized up fellow GOP candidate Ben Carson. A link to the video is here: https://on.msnbc.com/1M5ZCVu Material was used from The Associated Press in this post.
Donald Trump says Hillary Clinton is still shrill
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Thursday didn’t back away from calling Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton “shrill,” explaining “that the word shrill doesn’t apply to women exclusively.” He also defended his use of overseas workers at his Mar-a-Lago estate on Palm Beach instead of Floridians. Trump participated by phone on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program. The real estate tycoon-turned-reality TV star is still on top of the GOP pack with nearly 33 percent in the Huffington Post national polling average. On Wednesday, Trump called Clinton shrill at a campaign event the day before in the Charleston Convention Center in South Carolina. As The Washington Post noted: Trump is often criticized for the way he describes women, and Clinton was not the only woman he reproved. He said Caroline Kennedy is too nice to be the ambassador to Japan. He described, at length, a “vicious, vicious woman” in her 80s who once sued him during a dispute over an apartment. And he yet again called the career of former technology executive Carly Fiorina, another Republican running for president, “a disaster.” When BBC World News America anchor Katty Kay challenged him on it, Trump said, “I think the word shrill doesn’t apply to women exclusively. I know men that are shrill, and it’s just an expression that I thought of … She’s gotten very loud and very boisterous and that can happen to men too, Katty.” “It’s just, you know, you never hear people say it about men,” Kay said. Trump responded, “I don’t know, there’s something going on with her. There’s really something going on. I think she’s going to make a terrible candidate just as she was a terrible Secretary of State.” He also said he “would call (Kentucky Sen.) Rand Paul shrill. I think he’s shrill. I don’t think that’s a term that applies exclusively to women at all.” Paul is also running for the GOP nomination. MSNBC commentator Mike Barnicle then questioned Trump’s request of visas for foreign labor at Mar-a-Lago, where they’re paid an average of $10-$12 an hour, “rather than hiring workers from Florida.” “Mar-a-Lago is a seasonal job, which is very hard to get people in Florida for seasonal jobs,” he said. “And during the season in Palm Beach, it’s very, very hard to get help. You can’t, you know, we’re talking about Mar-a-Lago, the club is closed for the summer. You know, the expression ‘Rich people don’t like heat.’ “And we close Mar-a-Lago and we open October – like October 1st,” Trump added. “And from that, for about a five month period during what they call the Palm Beach Season, which is a big deal, you can’t get help. So we tend to get help from different places including Europe. And we’ve been doing that – by the way, these are all legal visas.” Trump also slammed Fox News again, saying it ignored his standing in the latest Florida poll. Trump had said the network was treating him “unfairly” and wouldn’t make any more appearances on its news shows. “The Florida poll came out and the headline was that (Marco) Rubio surges past (Jeb) Bush,” he said. “And I said I guess that’s too bad; I guess I’m not in the poll. “Well, I had 31.5 percent,” Trump added. “They were down in the teens. And I said that’s sort of an amazing thing. That’s an amazing headline. It’s Rubio surges past Bush is the headline and I’m the one that’s leading the poll by a lot.”
