Glenn Beck: Trump is not conservative
Conservative media personality Glenn Beck on Saturday said GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump is a false conservative.
Beck added that Trump’s rhetoric shows the outspoken billionaire often deviates from conservativism’s traditional principles.
“I don’t think he is,” Beck told host Scott Simon on NPR’s “Weekend Edition Saturday” when asked about Trump’s right-wing credentials.
{mosads}“I haven’t heard him talk about the Constitution or small government,” Beck said of the New York business mogul.
“It’s hard to say you espouse conservative principles and small-government principles when you are saying that you think [the] Canadian healthcare system works and is wonderful,” Beck added.
Beck argued that Trump fails his own personal metric for testing a political candidate’s conservative mettle.
“I have a lot of listeners who say I’m wrong on this, but that’s OK,” he said. “But that’s OK, I speak my mind and my opinion is my opinion. Nothing more and nothing less.”
“I look for a man of integrity, humility, who is rooted in the Constitution,” Beck added. “Because if you root yourself in the Constitution, we can’t go too far left or too far right. We are held by principles we all used to declare we found self-evident.”
Beck’s remarks come as Trump is leading the race for the GOP’s presidential nomination across national polls.
Beck said Trump is resonating with voters who are exhausted with establishment politicians misrepresenting them.
“He is not a politician,” Beck said. “He is saying the populist things right now.”
“I think what’s happening with Bernie Sanders with the left is the same thing that’s happening with Donald Trump,” he added of the Vermont 2016 hopeful. “They want somebody to say it the way they think it — especially if they say it in a non-politically correct way.”
Beck’s latest take on Trump escalates his ongoing campaign attacking the celebrity real estate magnate’s credibility as a Republican.
He previously called Trump a “son of bitch” before panning his performance in the GOP’s first televised debate earlier this month.
“He is the most arrogant candidate next to the candidate called Barack Obama,” Beck said of Trump following the Aug. 6 event on Fox News. “I mean, there’s nobody I’ve seen more arrogant than him.”
The influential radio host also decreed late last month that his program is no longer covering the kingpin’s Oval Office bid.
“I’m sick of it, so we’re moving on,” said co-host Stu Burguiere on July 23. “I just can’t do another show about it.”
Co-host Pat Gray then described the broadcast as “now with 100 percent less Donald Trump talk, other than saying we’re 100 percent Trump-free.”
Trump remains one of the most popular candidates in the crowded 2016 presidential field despite concerns over his lack of political experience. He drew at least 20,000 people to a rally at Ladd Peebles Stadium in Mobile, Ala., on Friday night for a raucous campaign rally.
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