CBS’ Garrett: Graham Says GOP ‘Faces Extinction’ if Choice Is Cruz or Trump

RUSH TRANSCRIPT:

GARRETT: “Good morning. Late last night, Donald Trump dismissed “national review” as a dead paper not many read any more and said more on twitter but because twitter never forgets it was there last April Trump called “national review “a true conservative voice that needed to be saved. Ronald Reagan is the best on conservatism. Now Trump is in a testy fight with Ted Cruz.”
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CRUZ: “If you think the last time we beat the Washington cartel, it was 1980. The Reagan revolution.”
GARRETT (voice-over): “Bob Dole said Trump is widely disliked and loyalty parts was also wrong about Ronald Reagan.”
CRUZ: “I would admit Mr. Dole said we need somebody to go to Washington and cut a deal. Well, the American people understood that’s not what we needed.”
TRUMP: “Cruz is going down!”
GARRETT (voice-over): “Donald Trump campaigning in Las Vegas also invoked Reagan and said he is ready to make deals.”
TRUMP: “Guys like Ted Cruz will never make a deal, because he is a strident. No, you cannot have that! (...) Ronald Reagan would get along with Tip O’Neill and they would sit down and make great deals for everybody.”
GARRETT (voice-over): “In New Hampshire, john Kasich like Jeb Bush is trying to rise from the ashes. Kasich moved into contention for second in a poll of undeclared voters. And is now taken aim at his close rival bush on twitter attacking his record in Florida. And a Super PAC supporting Kasich accused bush of mudslinging.”
NARRATOR: “— desperately slinging mud on fellow Republicans. That’s not presidential, Jeb.”
GARRETT (voice-over): “On the Kasich bus, the governor called Hillary Clinton a fragile candidate.”
KASICH: “She’s like a check the box candidate as opposed to somebody with vision. People don’t want somebody that just is sort of a plumber, a mechanic to go and fix it.”
GARRETT (voice-over): “He said he needs a strong finish in New Hampshire or the game is over.”
KASICH: “Many people in politics, it’s interesting. They want to be with a winner but don’t want to make a winner. If we come out of New Hampshire in a strong position they will be there to join the team.”
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GARRETT: “Both Trump and Cruz will be up on the air today with new ads attacking each other. Lindsey Graham summed up Republican options between the two concluding if either is the nominee the Republican Party says extinction whether it’s death by being shot or poisoning doesn’t really matter.”