Pointing fingers at senior members of 70-year-old GOP nominee real estate mogul Donald Trump’s campaign, Chairman Paul Manafort finds himself in the hot-seat, watching Trump’s convention bounce fall flat. Only one week ago, Trump led Democratic nominee 68-year-old former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by 3% nationally. That lead plummeted after Hillary cleverly set Trump up with a convention diatribe by the father of fallen Iraqi solider Cpt. Humayan Khan. Khizr Khan bated Trump, pulling out his pocket Constitution, accusing Trump of knowing nothing about the document, ripping Trump for restricting Muslims from entering the United States. Hillary had no problem exploiting a fallen “Gold Star” family for political gain. By the time Trump said boo, he watched condemnation from all sides, especially from Sen. John McCain (R-Az.), Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
In one week’s time, Trump’s watched his small lead evaporate, with Hillary now leading aggregate polling by 6.9%, whopping 9.9% turnaround. Hillary’s helped by the mainstream media, going hog-wild, nitpicking on everything Trump does or says. While nothing’s really changed with Trump’s message, the Hillary campaign has succeeded for now in defining him as a racist, certainly insensitive to minorities, especially Muslims. Pointing fingers at Manafort misses the role the press—and Trump’s own party—has played in sabotaging Trump’s campaign. “A big part of being the man in charge is managing the candidate, and he’s got a tiger by the tail,” said an unnamed source close to Manafort. Manafort has nothing to do with the press making a federal crime out of Trump’s inconsequential comments about Khizr’s wife. Only recently has Khizr been identified as a Hillary operative.
Trump had nothing to do with Cpt. Humayan Khizr’s death in 2004. Hillary used Khizr to rip Trump’s position on banning some Muslims for their terror risk to U.S. citizens. Since announcing his Dec. 8, 2015 Muslim ban, Trump has revised it to only restrict un-vetted Mideast refugees seeking to immigrate to the U.S. Khizr went overboard at the Democratic National Convention insulting Trump, accusing him of knowing nothing about “sacrifice” or the U.S. Constitution. Democratic and Republican operatives know that most Americans haven’t made the ultimate sacrifice their country. Singling out Trump shows how a clever PR strategy can go viral with the press looking rip Trump. If Manafort’s guilty of anything, he’s not pointing out how the press is not giving the Trump campaign a fair shake. Watching the GOP, especially McCain, denounce Trump is disgraceful.
Trump’s campaign needs to aggressively go after the press and renegade GOP members from disparaging the GOP nominee. Trump doesn’t need to hear McCain—who has his own issues with Trump—agree with a Hillary operative designed to sabotage the Trump campaign. Trump’s latest drop in the polls directly relates to the press and members of the GOP ripping Trump for almost anything. “Trump is not listening to him, obviously. Paul’s certainly not advising him to do this stuff,” said the anonymous source, missing the point that there’s nothing Manafort can do until the campaign challenges the media. Fox News Sean Hannity got so fed up with the GOP he called them out. “I’m getting a little sick and tired of all of you,” said Hannity Aug. 5, referring to GOP members attacking Trump. Hannity’s Fox News colleague Bill O’Reilly set the record straight calling Khizr Khan a paid political hack.
Since the DNC convention ended last Thursday, the Hillary campaign has gotten away with murder, misrepresenting Trump. Hillary’s campaign even got President Barack Obama to warn Trump about receiving classified briefings, knowing, full well, that Hillary’s the one that has problems of keeping classified material off her private server. Obama’s breached presidential protocol, spending a good portion of his calendar ripping Trump as unfit for office. Everything Trump says is treated as treason. When he joked about the Russians finding Hillary’s missing emails, Hillary’s campaign paraded “national security” experts to attack Trump for violation the National Security Act. Any suggestion by Trump to improve relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin is met by phony testimony that he’s cozying up to the Kremlin. Trump says anything, Hillary’s campaign indicts him.
When you consider what’s really at stake in the election, it’s not about whether Khizr Khan was offended by Trump’s proposed Muslim ban. It’s about whether the U.S. economy can survive another four years teetering on recession. Whether or not Obama’s counter-terrorism strategy works, especially the battle against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS] and other Mideast terror groups, is what’s really at stake. Hillary’s campaign feeds the media’s phony press releases about the GOP giving up on Trump, clamoring to pick a new nominee. With that kind of fraudulent reporting, it’s up to the press to see how their manipulated by the Hillary campaign. But certainly it’s not Manafort’s fault that Hillary’s hyper-aggressive PR strategy gets taken hook, line and sinker by the press. Manafort needs to be equally aggressive calling out the press when they report nonsense about Trump’s campaign.
