A prominent Republican donor is voicing his disapproval of a campaign led by top Republican donors to deny Donald Trump the 1,237 delegates necessary to secure the Republican presidential nomination.
On March 1, Our Principles PAC, a group that has been attacking Trump in the early primary states, held a conference call with top Republican Party donors to rally support for the anti-Trump effort, the New York Times and Politico reported. Participants included Hewlett-Packard President and CEO Meg Whitman, Chicago Cubs co-owner Todd Ricketts, and hedge fund manager Paul Singer.
Dr. Richard Roberts, who backed Scott Walker before he dropped out of the race, and has financially contributed to Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, and Rand Paul, took issue with the anti-Trump strategy on the conference call.
In an email correspondence with Jewish Insider, Roberts said he was “dismayed” by what he heard on the conference call in regards to the proposed themes of the group’s ads, especially in Florida. Roberts said Trump had already effectively refuted most of the charges that the PAC was planning to attack him with. According to Roberts, one of the tactics discussed on the call was to assert that Trump isn’t really a successful businessman, as evidenced by the bankruptcies of four of his companies.
Roberts said that after the conference call, he sent an email to one of the participants telling him that he was surprised by the “disingenuous” discussion that he had heard, citing that Trump had already stated that out of 150 of his companies, four had declared bankruptcy. Roberts’ use of the word “disingenuous” didn’t bode well with some billionaires that received the email.
Roberts told Jewish Insider that it is clear there is an anti-Trump “smear campaign” that is being waged broadly across the media that has grown to a fevered pitch in an attempt to hit Trump with a “tidal wave” in a “frenzied attempt” to destroy Trump before Tuesday.
“These attacks are also disingenuous,” he asserted. “Leftists attempted to disrupt Trump’s rallies, denying him his right to free speech. But the press, pundits, and primary opponents turn these cases into smears claiming that Trump is responsible for the fights that have broken out. Pundits keep claiming that Trump is destroying the Republican party, but it is they who are destroying the Republican party by trying to deny the groundswell of grassroots voters their overwhelming choice.”
Roberts said the attacks by the press and Trump’s rivals “trying to smear Trump with comparisons, analogies, and unrelated issues all of which do not comprise criticisms with pertinent or truthful content” were coordinated in a “suspicious” manner to stop Trump. “Whether the chorus of attacks on Trump are just a haphazard coinciding of forces from the Left, Republican establishment, and pundits who promote their self-importance by taking positions of extreme projections and hyperbole, or if there is a more sinister coordination by a core of self-interested Republican billionaires and establishment politicians, I do not know,” he said. “But I am very sure that the tsunami of smears against Trump, at this moment, are disingenuous.”
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