How They Plan on Taking Trump Down (Round 1)

About a month ago, Daily Caller reporter Alex Pappas wrote up a story on a focus group put together by pollster Frank Luntz.

The focus group was designed to probe Donald Trump supporters and find weaknesses in Trump's campaign.

Pappas reported in the article:

“Nothing disqualifies Trump.”

That was the takeaway of Frank Luntz, the public opinion guru, after leading a focus group Monday night of supporters of Donald Trump’s Republican presidential campaign...

At one point, Luntz bolted from the room with the focus group to make sure the handful of reporters observing on the other side of the glass understood how big of a deal this was. “My legs are shaking,” he admitted.

“This is absolutely for real,” Luntz said of the intense and loyal support for Trump. “And he is not going away. And he is as strong as every survey shows. All those people who think he’s going to implode have not sat and talked to these voters the way that they should have.”

But there is one thing. In a clip of the focus group that was played on Face the Nation. Luntz did say (at the 7:25 mark) that the one thing that could hurt Trump is if it came out that he mistreated employees or small businesses.

Enter the elitist establishment operator Rupert Murdoch. In his Wall Street Journal this morning we have a longread titled, Trump and His Debts: A Narrow Escape.

From the article:

In 1992, when Trump Castle casino was in chapter 11, it paid Mr. Trump $1.5 million for guiding it through the process. In all, he took more than $160 million out of Atlantic City between 1990 and 1996 through fees and other payouts, according to a Wall Street Journal review of a wide array of documents from New Jersey gambling regulators and the Securities and Exchange Commission...Those who entrusted him with their funds or labor, including employees, vendors and bond and stockholders, often fared less well. Taj Mahal contractors were told to take less than they were owed. Workers lost their jobs.

Expect this quote to show up in anti-Trump ads and to be used as a talking point by the other candidates and their surrogates.

The serious attacks on Trump are about to begin. I don't think anyone knows if they will be successful, but they are going to be intense.

-RW