Trump is Not Hurting the GOP, Analyst Says

The author of a new book on Donald Trump rejects the Establishment’s conventional wisdom that the real estate mogul would damage the Republican Party.

“When I listen to these guys say that Donald Trump would destroy the Republican Party, I hate to do this because I love President (George W.) Bush — but I have to say that the CBS/New York Times poll on the day he left office gave him an approval rating of 22 percent,” conservative columnist Jeffrey Lord said Tuesday during an appearance on “The Laura Ingraham Show.”

“If you want to talk about doing damage to the Republican Party, it was done by the folks at the Bush administration who kept pushing this quote-unquote compassionate conservatism, which is essentially moderate Republicanism,” he said.

Lord, the author of “What America Needs: The Case for Trump,” said the criticism of Trump reminds him of the broadsides wielded against Ronald Reagan, for whom he worked as associate political director.

“This was the same stuff that was said constantly about Ronald Reagan, who left, I might add, same poll … his rating was 68 percent,” he said.

Lord said any conservative president is guaranteed to face a media onslaught for unpopular decisions.

“You gotta have somebody who’s got the core guts, the iron in their spine, to stand up to this kind of thing and move forward,” he said. “And frankly, I mean, this is the problem with a lot of the Republican Establishment. They cave before they even get in the room. And then it gets worse.”

With Trump leading nationally and in most states, the Ted Cruz-vs.-Trump battle for the Iowa caucuses in two weeks likely holds more importance for the Texas senator, according to political reporter David Catanese.

In a separate appearance on “The Laura Ingraham Show,” Catanese said Trump is showing surprising strength among evangelical voters across the country, as highlighted by the warm reception he got Monday at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. That is challenging conventional wisdom that Christian conservatives would not embrace a twice-divorced businessman without deep connections to religious leaders.

“Now, we’re seeing that that may not be true, that they’re sort of in line with the rest of the Republican Party that’s getting behind Trump,” he said. “I think we’re going to see a very early test of this, though.”

Catanese said the expectations game — with Cruz ahead in many recent Iowa polls — means that a Trump win would be played almost as an upset.

“If he beats Cruz in Iowa, then it could be a steamroll,” he said.