Republican leaders lashing out at Trump

Donald Trump is a hypersensitive candidate who lashes out “almost uncontrollably” to criticism, Republicans shouldn’t exploit Russian hacks on Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and the election is not rigged.

It’s hard to imagine Republicans making a better argument for Clinton just hours ahead of the third and final presidential debate.

With Trump trailing nationally and in a number of battleground state polls — and even Arizona — Clinton’s campaign is expecting Trump to deploy a scorched-earth approach to their Las Vegas bout. But fellow Republicans unexpectedly placed a rhetorical firewall around the real estate mogul.

Indeed, if Newt Gingrich stepped on Trump’s toes by inadvertently highlighting his thin skin as a weakness that “I hope he grows out of,” Marco Rubio and John Kasich then stomped on both of his feet.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a top Trump surrogate, dealt the first blow when he offered a candid assessment of Trump’s shortcomings, including an expansion on his notion of Big Trump, Little Trump.

“There’s a piece of his personality, which is very sensitive, particularly to anything which attacks his own sense of integrity or his own sense of respectability, and he reacts very intensely, almost uncontrollably, to those kinds of situations,” Gingrich acknowledged during an interview conducted Tuesday and published Wednesday with the Washington Examiner’s David Drucker.

“I think that’s a weakness,” he added. “I hope he grows out of it.”

Ben Reilly wrote:

Donald Trump is a hypersensitive candidate who lashes out “almost uncontrollably” to criticism, Republicans shouldn’t exploit Russian hacks on Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and the election is not rigged.

It’s hard to imagine Republicans making a better argument for Clinton just hours ahead of the third and final presidential debate.

With Trump trailing nationally and in a number of battleground state polls — and even Arizona — Clinton’s campaign is expecting Trump to deploy a scorched-earth approach to their Las Vegas bout. But fellow Republicans unexpectedly placed a rhetorical firewall around the real estate mogul.

Indeed, if Newt Gingrich stepped on Trump’s toes by inadvertently highlighting his thin skin as a weakness that “I hope he grows out of,” Marco Rubio and John Kasich then stomped on both of his feet.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a top Trump surrogate, dealt the first blow when he offered a candid assessment of Trump’s shortcomings, including an expansion on his notion of Big Trump, Little Trump.

“There’s a piece of his personality, which is very sensitive, particularly to anything which attacks his own sense of integrity or his own sense of respectability, and he reacts very intensely, almost uncontrollably, to those kinds of situations,” Gingrich acknowledged during an interview conducted Tuesday and published Wednesday with the Washington Examiner’s David Drucker.

“I think that’s a weakness,” he added. “I hope he grows out of it.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/republicans-undercut-trump-debate-2016-229990

This must be the most bizarre presidential campaign in U.S. history by a wide margin.