This week Donald Trump surged ahead in the race to be the Republican candidate in the US presidential election following Super Tuesday. Since then, there has been a lot of negative press surrounding Trump — with naysayers worrying about his plans to build a wall between America and Mexico, and ban Muslims from entering the country.
While Piers Morgan attempted to defend Trump’s honour on Wednesday, the American businessman now has a new champion in the shape of a former staffer at No.10. David Cameron’s good friend — and former director of strategy — Steve Hilton appeared on Newsnight last night to discuss the rise of Trump in America:
‘It’s precisely his character that people are responding to. The idea that he is not some smooth talking politician. he is actually a strong guy who is going to get in there and shake things up — that is exactly what people want.’
He then appeared to suggest that he himself could see Trump’s appeal:
‘I think the truth about Donald Trump is that he is a pretty non-ideological, pragmatic, problem-solving businessman. I don’t think he makes these statements because there’s some kind of bigoted ideologically driven point of view about people from other countries or races. I just don’t think that’s how he is.’
Before going on to claim that he is the opposite of ‘another crazy right-wing American politician’ and in fact is not ‘right wing enough’ for the Republican party:
‘It might be easy for people in the UK who are following the race from afar to conclude from some of the things that Trump is saying that he is pretty much another crazy right-wing American politician but in fact it’s the opposite.
One of the reasons that the Republican establishment is really worried about Trump and rounding on him is not that he’s too right wing, it’s that he’s not right wing enough. They think his positions on abortion and even immigration are not right wing enough.’
While Mr S suspects that Hilton will need to develop his argument in order to convince the majority of sceptics, at least he will be able to help build relations between Cameron and Trump — should the Republican hopeful be elected as the next President of the United States.
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