Donald Trump

The GOP Establishment Finally Accepts The Idea That Donald Trump Will Be Their Nominee

The New York billionaire, who is tightening his grip on the Republican presidential nomination with big wins in state after state, congressional endorsements, and the acknowledgment from pillars of the GOP elite that Donald Trump will be the party’s standard-bearer.

Published

10 years ago

April 30, 2016

Geoffrey Grider

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The Stop-Trump fever that gripped the Republican establishment for months has broken

The walls are closing in around a shrinking band of hard-core opponents of the New York billionaire, who is tightening his grip on the Republican presidential nomination with big wins in state after state, congressional endorsements, and the acknowledgment from pillars of the GOP elite that Donald Trump will be the party’s standard-bearer.

There was grizzled RNC committeeman Ron Kaufman likening Trump to Reagan. There was Indiana Gov. Mike Pence’s half-hearted endorsement of Ted Cruz. There was former House Speaker John Boehner’s confession that he and Trump are texting buddies and golfing partners. There’s the slew of endorsements (and a prediction by Trump campaign officials that another wave is coming after Indiana votes next week). It’s adding up to a slow but steady coalescing around the man once considered so vile to the GOP base that he’d rip the party to shreds.

“We’ve had enough intraparty fighting. Now’s the time to stitch together a winning coalition,” said Jon Huntsman, the former governor of Utah. “And it’s been clear almost from the beginning that Donald Trump has the ability to assemble a nontraditional bloc of supporters. … The ability to cut across traditional party boundaries — like ’80, ’92 and 2008 — will be key, and Trump is much better positioned to achieve that.”

Huntsman isn’t alone. He’s the latest in a long list of party stalwarts and defenders of the GOP establishment that have accepted Trump as the best remaining option in the field — and are encouraging Trump’s opponents to wind down.

“Clearly, Trump has seized momentum in a huge way,” said Kaufman, a close ally of Mitt Romney who supported Jeb Bush’s candidacy this year. “As he goes through the process here in Indiana, it appears more and more likely that Trump will be able to have 1,237 [delegates] before we descend on Cleveland.” “That’s enough to claim the nomination.”

“There’s a chance here that in the end, our presumptive nominee will be known before the Democrats,” he continued. “Who would have thought that?”

Now, it looks like it’s the opposition — not Trump — who is dividing the GOP.

“We are not doing anything in the interest of party unity,” said Katie Packer, founder of the anti-Trump Our Principles PAC, which put out a blistering anti-Trump ad Friday afternoon. “We do not think there is anything noble about wrapping our arms around a candidate who isn’t a Republican, doesn’t have a serious policy agenda and has not secured a majority of Republican votes.”

“I’m willing to do anything in my power to stop Trump from hijacking our party,” Packer continued.

But pro-Cruz and anti-Trump forces are running out of options to prevent Trump from becoming the nominee. If the real estate developer and reality television star scores a big win in Indiana on Tuesday, Cruz’s only remaining strategy may be a hostile takeover of the Republican National Convention — a move GOP insiders still see as possible but certainly one that could severely damage the party.

Trump’s growing list of elected allies are encouraging Cruz to discard any such thinking.

“It’d hurt the very party that they want to represent,” Rep. Lou Barletta (R-Pa.) told POLITICO on Friday. “That’s not good and that’s why I believe that the establishment and people in Washington should say this is over. Donald Trump is clearly, clearly who the people want.”

Manafort Predicts Donald Trump Will Win The Nomination On The First Ballot:

Trump’s top adviser, Paul Manafort, is doing more than appealing for unity. He and his team are now making the case to lawmakers that Trump will seal the nomination before the national convention with a combination of bound delegates and roughly 40 unbound delegates from Pennsylvania who they consider solid Trump supporters, according to two Capitol Hill allies of Trump.

Even before Trump’s six straight primary blowouts in the past two weeks, Manafort told lawmakers at an April 14 meeting that the front-runner would win on the first ballot. Manafort based that case on projections that Trump has since exceeded, including a projected 85 bound delegates in New York, where the businessman ended up winning 89 delegates, according to a Republican aide.

Even if Trump crosses the threshold to earn 1,237 bound delegates at the convention, Cruz may not be out of options. The Texas senator has been crushing Trump in the shadow fight for loyal convention delegates — delegates who could be free to vote their preference on a second ballot. It’s conceivable that a majority of the delegates at the convention in Cleveland will oppose Trump’s nomination, even if they’re bound to vote for him. In that scenario, that majority could unseat scores of Trump delegates, rewrite convention rules to eliminate any binding requirements and make it less likely — if not impossible — for Trump to claim the nomination.

Cruz campaign officials have offered no hints as to whether they’d consider those options, or even make an attempt that could be cast as a coup. Party elders say they expect no radical gambits that would undermine the results of the primaries and caucuses.

Anti-Trump forces have not signaled whether their opposition will extend to the convention yet, especially if Trump clinches the delegates needed on a first ballot before the GOP descends on Cleveland. The conservative Club for Growth said in a statement that it expects to defeat Trump in Indiana and again in California, denying him the delegates to win the nomination outright. Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, whose family of wealth GOP donors has spearheaded the anti-Trump movement, is also poised to endorse Cruz.

An attempted convention takeover, however, would require Cruz’s team to assume that all of the delegates who have pledged loyalty to the Texan remain loyal in the face of massive backlash from party leaders. Indeed, even Cruz’s team knows that some of their delegates signed on simply to oppose Trump, not out of any deep attachment to Cruz.

“I think Cruz is counting on a lot of the people who have said that they’re going to support him. But a lot of those same people are coming around and are going to be — they’re going to be transitioning to Trump delegates,” said Corey Stewart, Trump’s Virginia campaign director. “They want to support a winner. These are very smart people and politically savvy people. … They’re coming around.”

If Cruz were to pursue a convention takeover anyway, there’s a roadmap waiting for him.

North Dakota GOP committeeman Curly Haugland has been agitating for years that delegates may not be forced to vote against their conscience under the party’s current rules. Though a provision requires the secretary of the convention — a position appointed by the delegates — to record votes based on the party’s binding rules, a separate, conflicting provision lays out an entirely different vote-counting process in which delegates may cast a ballot for any candidate they choose — and do it secretly. Haugland argues that the latter rule supersedes the former because it is included in a section of the rules specifically meant to control the 2016 convention.

Haugland, who will be on this year’s convention rules committee, said he intends to propose language to eliminate the binding language to govern future conventions. His critics generally dismiss his proposals as politically unpalatable moves that would disenfranchise primary and caucus voters, but this year, the fervor among anti-Trump forces for a contested convention could lend his ideas currency.

One advocate of the stop-Trump-at-all-costs approach is Stuart Stevens, a former senior adviser to 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney. Stevens said he’s witnessed the slow acquiescence to Trump by party insiders, but he says he’ll never play along. He said that even if Trump reaches 1,237 bound delegates before the convention, Cruz should use his delegate advantage to block him anyway.

“You should do anything you can that’s within — anything you can legally — to try to win an election,” he said. “The Republican Party prided itself on opposing the Communist party and it would be a laughable irony if they fell into the Communist Party line and were supposed to ‘do what’s good for the party.’ Brezhnev would be chuckling somewhere.”

“I’m for fighting all the way,” he added. source

Donald Trump

History Teaches Us That Wars That Are Won Like WWII End In Surrender, And Wars That Are Not Won End With ‘Peace Talks’ Like The Korean War And Vietnam

Published

2 days ago

April 9, 2026

Geoffrey Grider

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A nation that will not finish a war has no business starting one, as both Israel and America have done with Iran in Operation Epic Fury under Trump and Hegseth

For all the swagger coming out of Washington, the hard reality is this: if you are really winning, you do not usually find yourself scrambling toward peace talks while the smoke is still rising. Multiple reports today say Vice President JD Vance is set to lead the American delegation into talks with Iran in Pakistan this weekend, even as the ceasefire itself remains shaky and disputes over Lebanon, the Strait of Hormuz, and the very terms of the agreement threaten to blow the whole thing apart. Though they are battered and bruised, the regime in Iran is still standing, still controlling the Strait of Hormuz, and as such have every right to proclaim victory. It will be tough to celebrate our 250th anniversary of America with this black cloud hanging over our heads.

“Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.” Luke 14:29-30 (KJB)

And that is what makes this whole spectacle so sad and pathetic. Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth are speaking the language of triumph while being dragged by events toward the peace table. Hegseth has been out there portraying Trump as a “president of peace,” even while the administration has lurched from threats of devastating force to a hurried two-week ceasefire and now to high-stakes negotiations. That is not the posture of settled victory. That is the posture of leaders trying to control the headline after losing control of the outcome.

America has seen this movie before. Korea did not end in victory, but in an armistice. Vietnam did not end in victory, but in an agreement that papered over defeat long enough for the final collapse to come. In both cases, politicians sold the public on the idea that talks at the table would secure what had not been secured on the battlefield. In both cases, the result was not lasting peace, but unfinished business and national humiliation. That is what happens when leaders start a war without the resolve to finish it.

Here we have Warmonger Pete gaslighting us by trying to make you believe that last night’s TACO moment is somehow an “ultimate victory” for America. Iran’s regime is still in place, they are charging $1 million per vessel in the SoH, and they now have all the time they need to… pic.twitter.com/F3Pcx75UHA

— Now The End Begins (@NowTheEndBegins) April 8, 2026

Now the same poison is back again, only this time it is mixed with branding, ego, and reckless decision-making. Trump’s great weakness has always been his addiction to public image. Everything must be dramatic, everything must be historic, everything must be framed as the greatest show on earth. Pete Hegseth, for all his tough-guy rhetoric, appears cut from the same cloth in this moment: full of chest-thumping declarations, full of boasts, full of victory talk, while the actual facts on the ground say something very different. Iran has not been marched into unconditional surrender. The regional fire has not been put out. The Strait of Hormuz remains a pressure point. Lebanon is still erupting. And yet these men want Americans to clap because they declared success on television.

Public swagger replaced strategic clarity. Boasts replaced discipline. Narrative replaced objective.

That is the reckless part of all this. They overtalked. They oversold. They ran ahead of reality. When leadership becomes more concerned with appearing strong than with thinking clearly, it creates exactly this kind of predicament. Men begin making impulsive declarations they later have to walk back. They draw lines they do not seem prepared to enforce to the finish. They promise outcomes they cannot yet guarantee. Then, when the pressure mounts and the enemy is still standing, they pivot to negotiations and pretend the pivot was the plan all along. But everybody can see it. If you have won, why are you rushing to talks? If the enemy has been broken, why is the ceasefire so fragile? If victory has already been achieved, why are basic terms still being disputed in public? These are not the questions that follow conquest. These are the questions that follow incompetence, miscalculation and drastic overreach.

I do believe, with all my heart, that according to Daniel 2:21, God put Donald Trump on the throne over America. I also believe that God put him there, not for blessing, but in judgment over a nation that has become very much like Babylon. Just look at all the global chaos now,… pic.twitter.com/CTUTupV6Py

— Now The End Begins (@NowTheEndBegins) April 7, 2026

And let’s be plain about it: peace talks before victory are often just decorated surrenders. They are where the political men who start the wars go to escape the consequences of their own rhetoric. They are where wars launched with thunder are quietly traded for ambiguous formulas, temporary pauses, and face-saving language. The enemy could not win outright, so he waits for the politicians to lose their nerve. Then he takes back at the negotiating table what he could not seize under fire. That is why this moment is so dangerous. The administration is boasting as though the war aims have been accomplished, while the facts suggest something far murkier: a pressured ceasefire, unresolved military and political issues, conflicting interpretations of the deal, and a fresh push for talks that could easily become the mechanism by which unfinished war is rebranded as peacemaking. Even reporting from today notes that Iran and the U.S. are advancing sharply different understandings of what comes next, and that the talks may determine whether hostilities resume or merely pause under a prettier name.

The Bible gives a sobering warning about halfway execution: “Cursed be he that doeth the work of the LORD deceitfully, and cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood.” Jeremiah 48:10 (KJB)

That verse is not a license for reckless violence, but it is a sharp warning against doing grave things weakly, deceitfully, or by halves. Once judgment is undertaken, to falter in purpose is to invite ruin. And in national life, that means if leaders commit a nation to war, then lose their nerve before victory is secured, they do not create peace. They create delay. They create instability. They create the staging ground for the next war. In fact, Trump just posted this to Truth Social: ” …In the meantime our great Military is Loading Up and Resting, looking forward, actually, to its next Conquest. AMERICA IS BACK!” The insanity is real and terrifying.

That is what makes the Trump-Hegseth performance so pitiful. They want the applause of victors without bearing the burden of actually securing victory. They want to sound like conquering generals while behaving like political operators boxed in by their own overstatements. They want America to believe that marching toward peace talks is proof of strength, even while the ceasefire wobbles and the enemy still retains leverage. That is not strength, that is managed embarrassment.

A nation that will not finish a war has no business starting one. And a leader who brags about victory while inching toward the negotiating table is not displaying resolve. He is advertising weakness under a banner of strength. Korea showed it. Vietnam showed it. And if this Iran crisis ends the same way, it will be one more chapter in the long American habit of mistaking talk for triumph, and retreat for peace.

Now The End Begins is your front line defense against the rising tide of darkness in the last Days before the Rapture of the Church

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“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;” Titus 2:13 (KJB)

“Thank you very much!” – Geoffrey, editor-in-chief, NTEB

Donald Trump

TACO TUESDAY: After Threatening Iran With The Extinction Of Their ‘Whole Civilization’, President Trump Now Agrees To His 8th Meaningless Deadline

Published

4 days ago

April 7, 2026

Geoffrey Grider

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TACO Trump Blinks On Iran, Backs Away From War Deadline And Hides Behind Two-Week Ceasefire Brokered At The Last Minute

Donald Trump spent the day talking like a wartime Caesar, threatening Iran with civilizational destruction if Tehran did not submit by his deadline. Then, just one hour before the clock ran out, he did what he so often does when the pressure gets real, he blinked. Multiple outlets reported Tuesday, April 7, 2026, that Trump accepted a two-week ceasefire arrangement tied to diplomacy and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, with Pakistan playing the central mediating role. Don’t get me wrong, I am glad there won’t be nuclear war tonight, I truly am. But I am saddened and embarrassed watching the pusillanimous flip-flopper Trump running his mouth only to make another meaningless deadline.

“A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.” James 1:8 (KJB)

That is not iron resolve, that’s not Churchillian nerve. That is not the conduct of a man who means what he says. That is the now-familiar Trump cycle in full view: issue a threat big enough to shake markets and dominate headlines, pound the table, demand surrender, and then retreat into a “temporary pause” the moment the consequences of his own rhetoric begin to close in. AP reported Trump warning that a “whole civilization will die tonight,” while also noting the administration was pulled toward a two-week diplomatic off-ramp.

🚨 President Donald J. Trump makes a statement on Iran: pic.twitter.com/9mqTayL0Q3

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) April 7, 2026

And that is exactly why the “TACO Trump” label keeps sticking to him like tar. “TACO” stands for “Trump Always Chickens Out,” a phrase that was coined by Financial Times columnist Robert Armstrong in the tariff context before spreading into the broader political culture. CBS and ABC both traced the acronym to Armstrong and explained its meaning the same way: Trump talks maximum toughness and then backs off before the final collision. What just happened illustrates that beautifully.

I do believe, with all my heart, that according to Daniel 2:21, God put Donald Trump on the throne over America. I also believe that God put him there, not for blessing, but in judgment over a nation that has become very much like Babylon. Just look at all the global chaos now,… pic.twitter.com/CTUTupV6Py

— Now The End Begins (@NowTheEndBegins) April 7, 2026

Now that same label fits this Iran episode like a glove. Trump wanted the political theater of a final ultimatum. He wanted the optics of a strongman standing on the brink of decisive action. He wanted the world to believe that midnight would bring fire. Instead, midnight brought another extension, another pause, another exit ramp, another reminder that Trump loves the language of confrontation more than the reality of it. The ceasefire was reached only hours before Trump’s own deadline for major military strikes.

READ WHAT THE KING JAMES BIBLE HAS TO SAY ABOUT THE CONNECTION BETWEEN MENTAL ILLNESS AND DEVIL POSSESSION, CLICK TO ORDER!!

Let’s say it plainly: you do not get to spend the afternoon threatening to wipe out a civilization and then spend the evening hiding behind a “double-sided ceasefire” without being called exactly what that looks like. It looks weak. It looks theatrical. It looks like a man addicted to brinkmanship but terrified of the bill coming due. Even AP’s more cautious live coverage still described the moment as Trump pulling back on his threats for two weeks, subject to Iran agreeing to terms.

To be fair on the facts, the surrounding details were still moving fast Tuesday night. Axios framed the ceasefire as agreed; AP emphasized Pakistan’s push for the delay; The Guardian described Trump as suspending the deadline rather than pressing forward immediately. But across those reports, the core point holds steady: Trump did not follow through on the thunder he had just unleashed. He backed away into a two-week pause. This latest Iran ceasefire does not make Trump look like a master strategist. It makes him look like what his critics have been saying all along: loud on the front end, slippery on the back end, and forever trying to pass off retreat as genius. He wanted to look like a lion, but he ended the day looking like TACO Trump once again.

Now The End Begins is your front line defense against the rising tide of darkness in the last Days before the Rapture of the Church

HOW TO DONATE: Click here to view our WayGiver Funding page

“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;” Titus 2:13 (KJB)

“Thank you very much!” – Geoffrey, editor-in-chief, NTEB

Donald Trump

President Trump Issues Stark New Warning To Iran Saying ‘A Whole Civilization Will Die Tonight’ Invoking, And Threatening, Images Of Apocalyptic Disaster

Published

4 days ago

April 7, 2026

Geoffrey Grider

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Kharg Island Hit, Deadline Broken, and Trump Talks of a Civilization Dying Tonight as Middle East Brinkmanship In Iran Turns Fully Apocalyptic

Donald Trump’s latest Truth Social post is not the language of peace, prudence, or strength. It is the language of a man standing on the edge of a regional firestorm and talking like he is prepared to push the whole thing over the cliff. When a sitting president says, “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will,” after U.S. strikes had already hit more than 50 military targets on Kharg Island earlier in the day, that is not measured leadership. That is apocalyptic brinkmanship dressed up as strategy. That is World War Trump.

“And he changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth up kings: he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding:” Daniel 2:21 (KJB)

We understand that according to Daniel 2:21, that is is God that sets up kings and removes kings, all to accomplish His will in an given dispensation. If we believe that, and we do, then we rightly understand that Donald Trump is God’s man “on the throne” for this time we find ourselves in right now. A period of time the Bible calls the last days. So everything we are watching now are events and situations that have prophecy stamped all over them, because it is time for the prophets to be fulfilled.

BREAKING NEWS: Here we go! This confirmed video from RAF Fairford shows loaded B-52H Stratofortresses taking off today, and will be arriving in Iran tonight to coincide with Trump’s 8 PM deadline. Will Trump make good on his threat? We’re about to find out. pic.twitter.com/MSScvg9yg9

— Now The End Begins (@NowTheEndBegins) April 7, 2026

I have been saying for 10 years now that the whole reason why I voted for Donald Trump, all three times, was because I want very much for the end times timeline to be advanced. Trump is not doing it, God is doing it through Trump, and I agree with Isaiah that all this is a “strange act” and absolutely a “strange work” to behold. God has given America the president we deserve, amen? Amen.

‘A whole civilization will die tonight’: Trump’s menacing Truth Social message in full

FROM THE METRO UK: Donald Trump has posted an unhinged Truth Social rant hours after apparently breaking the deadline he set for Iran by striking Kharg Island.

‘A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will,’ he wrote. ‘However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS?

‘We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World. ’47 years of extortion, corruption, and death will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran!’

93 million people live in Iran, with the majority of the population living in built-up urban areas. Trump’s message comes hours before the 8pm deadline he set for Iran to agree to his demands. Explosions have already been reported on Kharg Island and other critical infrastructure today, however. READ MORE