ACU Chairman Matt Schlapp on CNN 2/16/2016

CNN commentator Essie Kupp, along with Matt Schlapp, he's the chairman of the American Conservative Union. He's also a former political director for President George W. Bush. Matt, first on that topic, with W now on the trail for Jeb, do you think this move to bring him out will give Jeb a bump in South Carolina? Yeah, I really do. I mean, he was getting all the negatives of having the Bush family name and all the negatives associated with people who might be upset with his brother's presidency. It's about time he figured out a way to get some of the positives with his mother on the trail in New Hampshire and his brother on the trail for him last night in South Carolina. I think, look, on the issue that Donald Trump is hitting Jeb Bush on, it's national security, it's 9-11. These are areas where George W. Bush gets very high marks, not just from Republicans, but from all Americans. So it's kind of a strange attack to me. There are things you could attack President Bush on. This is not the area where you should, and certainly not in South Carolina. This is all a win for Jeb Bush. See, I wonder if you agree on that. South Carolina, of course, has a lot of military bases there. There are a lot of military families. Do you think that that's a dangerous line of attack for Donald Trump? Well, yeah. I mean, no one but Code Pink wants to renegotiate, you know, George Bush's role in 9-11. And actually, after the debate, you saw Code Pink come out and endorse Donald Trump's language on the war. It's a very strange line of attack for Trump. He probably works with his, you know, small group of supporters, but not writ large. The thing that no one talks about when it comes to the Bushes in South Carolina, I mean, Matt's absolutely right. They're very popular in South Carolina. It's a military state. It's, you know, popular to defend a hawkish point of view. But what no one really remembers is that all Jeb needs is a confidence boost. And if all he gets from bringing W. out and seeing his mom on the campaign trail is a bit of a confidence boost, this is a win for Jeb Bush. The one or two point upswing in a state poll that's probably within the margin of error might be the least consequential benefit of getting the family back together again. Eventually, they always got to turn that confidence into numbers, I imagine. But Matt, the other big storyline we've been talking about growing for you, Rubio versus Trump versus Cruz, everyone calling everyone a liar. Let's just have a look at one of those exchanges here. Two of the candidates in this race, Donald Trump and Marco Rubio, both have the very same pattern. Whenever anyone points out their record, they simply start screaming liar, liar, liar. It's a very odd dynamic. You're right. It brings name calling is not a positive thing in politics. So Matt, you heard Donald Trump say to us yesterday that this could hurt the GOP nominee in a general election. Do you agree with that, I suppose? And if so, do you think that's going to stop anybody? You know, we all worry about it because in the end, we have to figure out a way to come together and unify, and this is some pretty tough talk. But remember, Bob Dole told George Bush he was lying about his record. We remember all of these past charges that take place in these campaigns. It always gets heated. People always get called liars. Names get called. And in the end, these candidates will come together. What I really worry about more is, do all these Trump supporters and Ted Cruz supporters and Marco Rubio supporters and Jeb Bush supporters, will they all come together? When people take on Trump so aggressively, they need to remember they're taking on his supporters as well, and it's imperative for Republicans to stitch this coalition together if we're to beat Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders. See, that is a problem because, in effect, you're calling the candidate a liar, but to some degree, you're calling his supporters liars too, right, because they tend to buy that line of argument, right? Yeah. Look, that's always tough. I think the mistake that the party made in 2012 was completely dismissing everyone else's supporters but Mitt Romney, and the party sort of thought, well, we don't need them. And actually, we did. And so Matt's right. We need Trump supporters to attach to someone else if he is not the eventual nominee, and the same is true of everyone else. The problem I have is that I don't think Donald Trump is particularly concerned about the future of the Republican Party. I think he's concerned about his own future. He's talked about running as an independent. I think he's got very little allegiance to the health of the Republican Party in the future. That's what I'm concerned about. And so this race, I think, has been damaging for the health of the party in the future, and it'll be up to a lot of us to sort of cobble it back together when this is all done. SC Cupp, Matt Schlapp, thanks for breaking it down for us.