Halperin: Trump ‘Not Even Close to Living to the Responsibility’ of a ‘Nat’l Leader’

RUSH TRANSCRIPT: 
SCARBOROUGH: "Mark Halperin, the thing is, he’s been playing the short game for a very long time. The I’ve been calling him a political day trader because he’s known what he has to do to win the day, to win the hour, to win the media cycle and he knows what he’s had to do to cut out a plurality of Republican voters. And he’s done it brilliantly, he’s done it by himself and he’s going to win the Republican nomination, he’s probably going to lock it down for the most part tomorrow. But at this point, this sort of day trading may help him in the short run with the trades that are right in front of him on the computer moving quickly but will destroy him at the end of the day."
BRZEZINSKI: "And maybe our country."
SCARBOROUGH: " I’m just saying just politically. Forget about all the hyperbole, forget about blood running in the streets. Just politically this is a dead end. You get your 35%, 40% of Republican primary voters which only make up one-third, people who vote in primaries make up one-third of who vote in the actual general election among Republicans. And the world expands so much. The voting world expands so much going into the fall that he is for every one of these primary voters he’s pulling this way, he’s losing three, four, five general election voters. Do you have any evidence that there’s an understanding in the trump campaign that they need to shift gears and stop playing this short game, stop engaging in this day trading?"
HALPERIN: "Well, the day trading analogy is a good one and I’m not as sure as you that he’s going to be the nominee right now. We’ll see after tomorrow what happens if, as I expect, we’ll be down into a three-way race. Friday I said he was being cavalier aboureacting to what’s going on at his events. It’s gone beyond that. As Mika suggested, he has a huge responsibility which he did not live up to on the shows yesterday and Friday night. Even if he’s not the nominee, even if he’s not president, he’s a national leader now and he’s not even close to living up to the responsibility he has to try to be a more calming presence and to explain what is happening at his own events, which he called shows. But let’s see if he’s — if he doesn’t gate majority of the delegates, I think between what happened this weekend and what happened when he was asked to respond to David duke I think it’s going to be easier for the establishment to take the nomination away from him. The I’m not saying they will, but if he doesn’t gate majority, this weekend’s make it harder for him to win the votes at the convention."