Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump must "get out of the realm of entertainment and get into the realm of politics" if he wants to win the White House in 2016, political strategist Dick Morris told
Newsmax TV on Wednesday.
"His comments, the one-liners — all of that — that's in the realm of entertainment," Morris, who served in the Clinton White House, told "The Hard Line" host Ed Berliner.
"That's good for 'The Apprentice.' But for running for president, you've got to be much more specific and much more factual in your condemnation."
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Trump continued to experience the fallout Wednesday from remarks he made about Hispanics when he announced his candidacy last month.
Macy's, the New York-based retailing giant, severed its ties with Trump and his clothing line — and the developer himself said that he quit NBC before declaring his White House run, rebuffing an announcement from the network that it had dropped him.
Univision, the nation's largest Spanish-language cable channel, ended its relationship with Trump's Miss Universe Organization last week. He has sued the network for $500 million for breaking the five-year, $15 million contract.
Despite these dust-ups, however, Morris told Berliner that this attention may have fueled Trump's rise in recent polls, including a No. 2 finish among GOP presidential hopefuls in a recent
CNN/ORC poll.
"He says what he thinks — and he thinks stuff that maybe a lot of other people also think, but don't feel as politically correct to say," Morris said. "How much damage has he done to himself? Not much. He may have even helped himself.
"Everybody gets the feeling when they hear him speak that, 'Part of me feels that way, part of me wants to say that, but it's not correct to do so politically.'"
Trump's even helping the overall GOP brand, the strategist said.
Morris is the co-author of the New York Times best-selling book,
"Power Grab: Obama's Dangerous Plan for a One-Party Nation."
"In a way, he's almost helping the party because he's giving the other candidates something to play off — and it's very rare that a Republican gets the chance to appeal to Latinos," he told Berliner. "But somebody who steps out and knocks Trump for that, if any of them have the guts to do it, is going to really help himself with the Latino vote."
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