Author and columnist Michael Reagan argued that while none of the GOP presidential candidates are “Reaganesque,” Donald Trump is the least like Ronald Reagan on Saturday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Smerconish.”
Reagan said of the current GOP field, “They may have traits of Ronald Reagan in them, because they’re Republicans, and somewhat conservative, but are they Reaganesque? No. Ronald Reagan was likable and he was relatable. And if you’re not likable and relatable, you’re not going to get the vote of the American public. I would imagine that one of my good friends who, just suspended his campaign in the last 24 hours, was probably the most like Ronald Reagan, because he was a cowboy. Rick Perry, great friend of mine, wears the same boot size as my father, wears the same hat size as my father when he went out to the ranch. Great guy, couldn’t get off the ground in Texas.”
Reagan added that Trump is the least like Ronald Reagan, stating, “Ronald Reagan didn’t attack the people around him. He didn’t demean the people around him. He brought everybody together at the end. If Republicans don’t bring everybody together, at the end of the day, we do not win elections. We are the smallest bus in the building. We don’t have the ability to throw people off the bus and demean them. We have to figure [out] a way to put people on that bus, and move it forward to Washington, DC, and I don’t think that Donald Trump is the guy who, in fact, fills the bus with those people that he has demeaned as it goes, in fact, to the system.” And “now there’s a 12th [commandment] by, I would imagine by Donald Trump, I will speak ill of everybody, in fact, until I get to where I want to, in fact, go. And I think that’s what’s really sad here, is when you don’t have the issues, should I say, or the facts, what have you accomplished in government, and what have you? You attack all those people who have, in fact, accomplished things in government.”
Asked about his father’s relationship with Trump, Reagan stated, “I never saw him at Christmas dinner or Thanksgiving dinner, out at the ranch, but I would imagine that he had a relationship with him, because my father was president of the United States, and Donald Trump is Donald Trump, staying there in Manhattan, in the Trump Towers. … It’s not that Ronald Reagan said, ‘I’ve got to be with Donald Trump tonight.’ More like Donald Trump [said], ‘I need to be with the president of the United States tonight.’ I would to ask Donald Trump, how many state dinners were you invited to?”
Reagan also criticized GOP presidential candidate former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee for using Kim Davis to have “a campaign event” with Kim Davis, and stated, “My father would not have been there. My father would have followed the law set down, by the Supreme Court of our land, making gay marriage legal.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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