Pat Buchanan: National Review criticisms only helping Trump

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Pat Buchanan: National Review criticisms only helping Trump

Former presidential candidate weighs in on the magazine's anti-Trump issue

This is a rush transcript from "Your World," January 22, 2016. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

NEIL CAVUTO, HOST:  All right, I have a feeling if Donald Trump did have a subscription, he just canceled it, but The National Review ripping him a new one, a cover story, detailed by 23 top conservative thinkers around the country, who say that Donald Trump is not a conservative and shouldn`t get the Republican nomination or anywhere near the White House.

Bottom line, that didn`t sit well with Donald Trump, not surprising, but it didn`t sit well with the Republican National Committee that just disinvited National Review from a debate that was all slated for next month.

On the phone with us, former Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan.

Pat, you and I have chatted about this, about how suddenly now it looks like these conservatives, with the best of intentions and views, trying to delineate why they don`t think Donald Trump is one of them, sort of morphed into the establishment.  And I don`t think that was their intention, huh?

PAT BUCHANAN, FORMER WHITE HOUSE DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS:  I think that`s right.

There`s no new names there that I have seen that have represented a new position.  They have been known to be hostile to Trump.  Conservatives are for him.  Conservatives are against him.

But I think this is more about National Review trying to really establish a certain identity itself and institutional identity.  And I don`t think it helps itself.  It probably helps Trump to this degree, that it makes Trump look more and more like someone who is standing up against the Acela corridor folks, whether they call themselves conservatives or the establishment right.

It might do National Review some good in terms of elevating its profile, which has not high, but I don`t think it changes anything politically.  And to the degree it does, I think it would help Trump.

CAVUTO:  Now, you were kind of like an anti-establishment guy at the time when you were making your run for president.  And there was that sort of pitchfork image of you.

Now, I don`t know if Donald Trump has a pitchfork.  It might be very expensive one, a brass one and all, but he does seem, quite surprisingly, to be appealing to a crowd that sees him as one of them, even though he is a multibillionaire.  What do you make of that?

(CROSSTALK)

BUCHANAN:  I think, look, he appeals to populists, he appeals to nationalists, he appeals to conservatives, he appeals to patriots.

He has put on the table issues that the traditional conservatives run away from or declare extra outside the church.  And he is anti-amnesty.  He`s going to control the border.  He`s going to build a security fence.  
There`s going to be no path to citizenship.

He is going look at these trade deals with China, stop some of these trade deficits.  He`s not going to take us into any more of these crusades for democracy in these faraway countries.  Now, these are conservative views, or they`re consistent with consecutive views.

And the idea that National Review would say, you know, that`s extra ecclesiam, that`s outside the church, that violates our gospel, I think National Review look very restrictive on this, and especially when you have got more people in the Republican Party supporting Trump than any other candidate right now.

CAVUTO:  Well, respectfully, Pat, you could argue that his views on trade and encouraging trade wars and the talk of tariffs that he dialed back at the FBN debate last week, that there`s a lot of it that doesn`t quite jibe with the conservative principle.

But to your point...

BUCHANAN:  Well, let me just...

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO:  No, just real quick, I do have -- I want to let you go.

BUCHANAN:  Right.

CAVUTO:  And this idea that he is bringing far more into the Republican Party, contrary to what these conservatives are saying, than he is ticking off.

But continue.

BUCHANAN:  Well, there`s no doubt about that.

Look, and I think he can bring across potentially to the Republican Party and the Republican ticket people whom Republicans don`t usually get, working-class Democrats, like the Reagan Democrats, the Nixon new majority.

Now, on free trade, I agree with you.  There is an orthodoxy on free trade.  
But everybody can agree something has gone wrong when we have been totally de-industrialized and China has run up $4 trillion in trade surpluses with the United States in the last 20 years.

It certainly is open for debate, is it not?

CAVUTO:  Well, I think you`re right about that.

I think the populist rage could just as easily be seen as a liberal and a conservative rage at how, in the case of China, a lot of people say, wait a minute, why do we always seem to get the shorter end of the stick on these deals?  Maybe the problem is the deals.

BUCHANAN:  Why is it wrong to want to preserve the country we grew up in, the dynamic country that country that was self-sufficient in every category, rather than this Davos world we have got of globalization, where the United States is heavily dependent on countries all over the world for what is vital to our national security?

CAVUTO:  So, where do you think this goes?

For Donald Trump, he is enjoying it.  It`s new publicity.  It just shows that the establishment still has a problem with them.  He uses that as a campaign tool, but also shows that the establishment itself in the form of the RNC disinvited National Review, didn`t disinvite Donald Trump.

BUCHANAN:  Well, no, of course, you can`t come on there and act as though you`re sort of a neutral observer or a journalistic observer, when you have taken a stand saying this man ought to be defeated, and you`re sitting down there questioning him.

The National Review gave up any pretense of objectivity in that debate, when it took this position, and I assume it knew it going in.

CAVUTO:  Well, I think you`re right.  I think you`re right.  They know it now.

All right, Pat, thank you very...

BUCHANAN:  They have cleared it for them.

CAVUTO:  Yes, there we go.  No surprise.  No alert there, Pat Buchanan.

END

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