Jindal: ‘Stop Treating Donald Trump Like a Republican’

Republican presidential candidate and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal declared, “let’s stop treating Donald Trump like a Republican” during Wednesday’s first card debate on CNN.

During his introduction, Jindal said, “Now, look, I don’t have a famous last name. My daddy didn’t run for president. I don’t have a reality TV show. I’ll tell you what i do have, I’ve got the backbone, I’ve got bandwidth, I’ve got the experience to get us through the tough times, to make sure we don’t turn the American dream into the European nightmare.”

Later, after being asked if he was violating Reagan’s 11th commandment, Jindal answered, “Jake, I’m in compliance…and I would tell my fellow Republicans let’s stop treating Donald Trump like a Republican. If he were really a conservative, and 30 points ahead, I would endorse him. He’s not a conservative. He is not a liberal. He’s not a Democrat. He’s not a Republican He’s not an Independent. He believes in Donald Trump. Here’s the reality, the idea of America is slipping away. $18 trillion of debt, Planned Parenthood’s selling baby parts across our country. Our government’s creating a new entitlement program when we can’t afford the government we’ve got today. We’ve got a president who won’t even say the words ‘radical Islamic terrorism.’ He’s declared war on trans fat, and a truce with Iran. Think about that. he’s more worried about Twinkies than he is about the ayatollahs having a nuclear weapon. That is what is happening, the idea of America is slipping away. We must not let that happen on our watch. We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, to rescue the idea of America. The choice for conservatives, do we depend on proven conservative principles like Ronald Reagan did, or do we turn this over to a narcissist who only believes in himself?”

Fellow candidate former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum responded, “I think personal attacks just please one person, Hillary Clinton, and all we do when we go after each other, and we’ve seen a bunch of it, from people up on the stage, people who are going to be on the stage afterwards. … There are plenty of policy differences between the candidates up here, and the candidates later. Donald Trump has every right to run for president as a Republican, as anybody else in this audience, and he may have positions that I disagree with, but he has the right to do that, and the people should be given the benefit of the doubt to be able to see through these things. I don’t think it helps when Republicans attack Republicans personally. I’ll say some things tonight, which will be very big differences. The issue of immigration is one that there are huge differences [on]…and I will be out there talking about how we have to control immigration, how we have to look after the American worker. The focus of this debate should be on how we’re going to win this election, and help improve the quality of life for American workers, and we aren’t doing that when we’re out there picking at each other and calling each other names. The name we should be calling out is, what are we going to do for average Americans who losing ground in America today, and that should be our focus.”

Jindal countered, “Hillary Clinton is gift-wrapping this election to us. They are running the weakest candidate, they’ve had a Socialist that is gaining on Hillary Clinton. Folks, you can’t make that up, a Socialist is doing well in the Democratic primary. The best way for us to give this election back, would be to nominate a Donald Trump. He’ll either implode in the general election, or, if God forbid if he were in the White House, we have no idea what he would do. You can’t just attack him on policy. He doesn’t care enough about policy. It’s not enough to say he was for socialized medicine or higher taxes. He’s not serious.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett