Several MSNBC commentators agreed Friday that Donald Trump is projecting strength that is appealing to Republican voters after the terrorist attack last week in Paris.
On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” host Joe Scarborough cited a new NBC poll showing that Trump was leading the GOP presidential field with 28 percent of the vote. In second place with 18 percent was Ben Carson, who like Trump, has no government experience.
“Is it time for the Republican establishment in Washington, D.C., to go into a panic?” Scarborough asked.
NBC “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd said that GOP voters in the poll, which was taken in the two days after the attack in Paris, seemed to be responding to Trump’s bombastic rhetoric on how he would deal with the Islamic State. In contrast, Todd said Carson, who was tied with Trump in previous polls, may be suffering from failing to clearly articulate his foreign policy proposals.
“I know some thought that maybe the Paris attack would make the race ‘get serious’ and that would hurt Trump,” said Todd, “but I think a whole bunch of events, maybe the president being small, going on the attack himself, whatever it is, Trump seems stronger this week than he did last week. And you can’t help but wonder: Is this sort of the initial response by some voters in the Republican primary almost to gravitate back to Trump, back to strength, even if it’s politically incorrect strength?”
The attack in Paris by the terrorist network Islamic State last Friday left 129 dead and hundreds more injured. In the aftermath, several GOP presidential candidates have called for the U.S. to crack down on admitting refugees from Syria and Iraq. Trump has gone a step further, suggesting that Muslim places of prayer in the U.S. be monitored for terrorist activity and that Muslim Americans be tracked in some way by the government.
Mark Halperin of Bloomberg Politics said voters see Trump as someone who can execute on big problems facing the country. “Trump is seen as somebody who can solve things and that’s what the country wants now is a president who looks active and proactive in solving things,” he said.
