By: Daniel Horowitz | March 15, 2016
Actions matter. Long-held principles matter. And if a politician has no principles or has acted contrary to his campaign rhetoric prior to running in a primary, he most certainly will never fight for us once he no longer needs our vote. That is the enduring lesson I’ve learned from vetting Republican candidates running for Congress. And that is the lesson we must apply to all the presidential candidates. Yes, even Donald Trump.
Donald Trump donated thousands of dollars to extreme leftists in California, such as Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom. But that was last decade, which was part of the “ancient” history before Trump’s cathartic conversion. More recently, while conservatives were fighting the Gang of Eight amnesty bill and Obama’s sanctuary nation policies, Trump donated $6,000 to Kamala Harris, the California attorney general who is, perhaps, one of the most notorious supporters of sanctuary cities in the country. In 2014, his daughter, Ivanka, also cut a $2,000 check to the queen of sanctuary cities. That was after Harris championed the despicable Trust Act, which turned the entire state of California into a sanctuary for illegals. Coupled with her activities during her first term as attorney general and her prior work as San Francisco district attorney, Harris is one of the leftists most responsible for the policies that led to the murder of Kate Steinle.
According to Fox News, Harris told local officials in 2012 they were not required to cooperate with ICE. And that was prior to passage of the Trust Act:
In 2012, California Attorney General Kamala Harris said local law enforcement are not required to determine immigration status or enforce federal immigration laws. She also said civil immigration detainers — ICE requests to hold a suspect — are voluntary. The entire state also operates under the Trust Act, which allows illegal immigrants charged with minor crimes to be released after posting bail or serving time.
Yet, Donald Trump, who doesn’t even live in California, found a need to contribute to this woman DESPITE her years of activism on behalf of sanctuary cities.
But the minute Trump began running for president, he feigned outrage over the murder of Kate Steinle in San Francisco.
Conservatives would never tolerate this behavior from an establishment candidate.
And Trump’s $2,500 donation to then-Mayor Gavin Newsom in 2009 was after he declared the following:
I will not allow any of my department heads or anyone associated with this city to cooperate in any way shape or form with these raids. We are a sanctuary city, make no mistake about it.
Conservatives would never tolerate this behavior from an establishment candidate. We wouldn’t tolerate it from Rubio or Kasich. Why should we blithely ignore this simply because it involves the Anointed One? The Donald likes to say openly that he has been involved in and has participated in the corrupt system of the political class, and as such, he can best fix it. But if you believe he will suddenly turn off that corrupt faucet after he has acquired all that power and no longer needs our votes, and will direct that power against the political class and for us, I have a bridge to sell you in Mexico.
Here was Trump’s punch line during last week’s debate:
And I will tell you this, I know the system far better than anybody else and I know the system is broken. And I’m the one, because I know it so well because I was on both sides of it, I was on the other side all my life and I’ve always made large contributions.
And frankly, I know the system better than anybody else and I’m the only one up here that’s going to be able to fix that system because that system is wrong.
Perhaps there have been cases of arsonists becoming firefighters, bank robbers becoming cops, or masochists becoming physicians. But in the world of politics, nobody who has been part of the system has ever gotten better upon accumulating even more power.
Then again, just like eight years ago, we can ‘hope’ for change.
