Former New York Governor George Pataki has a problem with the media circus surrounding Donald Trump.
Pataki, who is also running for the Republican nomination for President, feels that, with all the coverage of Trump’s recent comments both about Mexican illegal immigrants and about whether or not Senator John McCain is a war hero, larger issues are getting overshadowed.
Trump is hurting the GOP “simply by diverting the dialogue from our ability to contrast our views as to how this country should be functioning to how [President Barack] Obama and Hillary [Clinton] are having it function is very important,” Pataki told The Wall Street Journal.
Namely, Pataki mentions, Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran–which, despite empowering a U.S. enemy and endangering Israel, has received little press in the past week as Obama prepares to introduce it to the United Nations.
Pataki, who hasn’t held elected office in nearly a decade, has faced an uphill battle in his fight for the nomination. In fact, he’s currently attracting so little support that he isn’t even included in a number of recent nationwide polls–and thus has no chance of participating in the Fox News debate on August 6, which is limited to only the top 10-ranking candidates in the polls.
But Pataki isn’t as concerned with Americans electing him–as much as he’s concerned that they elect a candidate who can beat Hillary Clinton in November 2016.
“We have to nominate someone who can win the election,” he said. “I know I can do that. I did that in the deepest blue state three times.”
And what happens if the Republican Party winds up electing Donald Trump?
“I don’t worry about that,” Pataki said confidently. “He’s not going to be president of the United States.”
