National Review Comes out ‘Against Trump,’ Loses Debate Sponsorship

The conservative media publication started in 1955 by William F. Buckley, Jr., known as National Review, has put together an editorial coming out against Donald Trump as the Republican presidential nominee. In response to the editorial decision publicly opposing Trump, the Republican National Committee has disinvited National Review as a debate sponsor on February 25.

Report from CBCNews:

An influential conservative magazine published an editorial on Thursday urging Republicans to rally against the front-running presidential candidate Donald Trump, with Iowa poised to begin the search for a 2016 nominee in 10 days.

National Review, a New York-based magazine founded in 1955 by famed conservative thinker William F. Buckley Jr., drew heavy scorn from Trump, on Twitter and at a Las Vegas news conference, for its issue entitled: “Against Trump.”

“Trump is a philosophically unmoored political opportunist who would trash the broad conservative ideological consensus within the GOP (Republican Party) in favor of a free-floating populism with strong-man overtones,” National Review said.

In the issue, 22 prominent conservatives write essays giving their reasoning, including William Kristol, Glenn Beck, Cal Thomas, Dana Loesch and Erick Erickson.

The magazine’s argument is one that has been made by several of his rivals for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, most notably by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush.

Trump has dismissed the piece as coming from a “dying paper,” and I don’t think something like this is going to damage him much. National Review has been writing negative pieces against Trump since he announced his candidacy last year and it hasn’t seemed to slow him down.

The other news is that the RNC has now dumped National Review from the upcoming Republican debate on February 25. Report from Politico:

The Republican National Committee has disinvited National Review from a presidential debate partnership following the release of an edition devoted to taking down Donald Trump, the conservative magazine reported late Thursday.

Jack Fowler, publisher of National Review, outlined the RNC’s rationale in a piece published on the magazine’s website.

“The reason,” he wrote, explaining the RNC’s stance: “Our ‘Against Trump’ editorial and symposium. We expected this was coming. Small price to pay for speaking the truth about The Donald.”

The real estate magnate and frontrunner in national Republican presidential polling slammed the edition on its release in a series of tweets.

I honestly can’t see any way this actually will hurt Trump’s chances. If anything, it will further lend credibility to him and his supporters as they fight against the establishment entrenched in both parties.


Nate Ashworth

The Founder and Editor-In-Chief of Election Central. He's been blogging elections and politics for over a decade. He started covering the 2008 Presidential Election which turned into a full-time political blog in 2012 and 2016 that continues today.

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