July 5, 2015

First off, the title is misleading. Brit Hume didn't tackle the 'Trump Problem' for the GOP. He made light of it, saying Trump's flamboyance and inflammatory rhetoric was meant to raise his own profile, but didn't reflect on any others in the race, or the Republican brand itself. Hume then made the sideways comparison with Bernie Sanders for the Democrats (remind me again of Sanders inflammatory rhetoric?). Basically Hume functioned as a surrogate for Reince Priebus, sounding just as rabidly partisan and just as foolish. (note to Fox News: just put Priebus on if you want GOP talking points, and spare the pretense of objectivity.)

George Will then got his chance to play the role of grown-up for Fox News Sunday, and that is more or less what he did, by not avoiding the subject altogether like Hume, but saying that yes indeed the GOP do have a Trump problem that tarnishes the brand.

WILL: “Picture him on stage in [the GOP debate in] Cleveland,” Will said on Fox News Sunday this morning. “He says something hideously inflammatory — which is all he knows how to say — and then what do the other nine people on stage do? Do they either become complicit in what he said by their silence, or do they all have to attack him? The debate gets hijacked. The process gets hijacked. At the end of the day he is a one-man Todd Akin. He’s Todd Akin with ten different facets.”

Will went on to say that by his behaviour, Donald Trump was acting more like "a Democratic mole".

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