{"id":16802,"date":"2016-03-22T08:00:23","date_gmt":"2016-03-22T15:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/trump-demands-gop-embrace-him-as-dems-unleash-new-attacks\/"},"modified":"2016-03-22T08:00:23","modified_gmt":"2016-03-22T15:00:23","slug":"trump-demands-gop-embrace-him-as-dems-unleash-new-attacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/trump-demands-gop-embrace-him-as-dems-unleash-new-attacks\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump demands GOP embrace him as Dems unleash new attacks"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014<\/strong> A front-runner under attack from all sides, Republican Donald Trump demanded that his party\u2019s skeptical establishment embrace the inevitability of his presidential nomination as he stormed into Washington on Monday. Democrats responded by debuting a multi-pronged assault, shifting their rhetoric and resources against the man they expect to face in a contentious and ugly general election campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf people want to be smart, they should embrace this movement,\u201d Trump declared at a news conference, shrugging off passionate resistance to his candidacy from both parties.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m an outsider,\u201d Trump said. \u201cThey\u2019re not used to this.\u201d<\/p>\n

As he often is, Trump was dogged by protests. A group of rabbis planned to boycott his evening speech to a pro-Israel lobbying group.<\/p>\n

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton touched off her party\u2019s fresh anti-Trump campaign during a morning foreign policy speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Conference, questioning the former reality television star\u2019s readiness to guide the nation through delicate international entanglements.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need steady hands,\u201d Clinton told thousands at the pro-Israel gathering. \u201cNot a president who says he\u2019s neutral on Monday, pro-Israel on Tuesday and who-knows-what on Wednesday because everything\u2019s negotiable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s security, she proclaimed, \u201cis non-negotiable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump kindled criticism from Republicans as well as Democrats earlier in the year when he pledged to be \u201csort of a neutral guy\u201d on Israel. While the U.S. is officially neutral in the Middle East conflict, his statement marked a rhetorical departure for U.S. presidential candidates.<\/p>\n

Clinton and her allies have readied a three-pronged effort that targets Trump\u2019s character, credentials and controversial statements about women and minorities. That began in earnest on Monday, with labor unions, members of Congress and the presidential candidates all escalating their criticism.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s be honest \u2014 @realDonaldTrump is a loser,\u201d tweeted Sen. Elizabeth Warren, before launching into eight messages slamming Trump\u2019s \u201cfailed businesses,\u201d \u2018\u2019petty bullying\u201d and \u201cflagrant narcissism.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Massachusetts senator and liberal hero had largely stayed out of the presidential race, avoiding any endorsement of Clinton or her Democratic rival, Bernie Sanders.<\/p>\n

The harsh words came the day before Clinton is likely to extend her overwhelming delegate lead over Sanders in primary contests in Arizona, Utah and Idaho. On the Republican side, Trump\u2019s remaining rivals \u2014 Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich \u2014 are fighting in Arizona and Utah to stop him from building an insurmountable lead as well.<\/p>\n

Cruz unveiled an endorsement from Utah Republican Gov. Gary Herbert, who declared in a state Capitol news conference that Cruz has the best chance to stop Trump. Kasich\u2019s campaign was promoting an endorsement from the GOP\u2019s 2012 nominee, Mitt Romney \u2014 although Romney only endorsed Kasich in Ohio. He\u2019s backing Cruz in Utah.<\/p>\n

Shortly after Clinton\u2019s speech, Trump huddled in Washington for a closed-door meeting with about two dozen Republican officials, many of them supporters.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s obvious that Mr. Trump will be our nominee,\u201d said Rep. Chris Collins, one of two New York congressmen openly backing him. \u201cWe need to take the fight to Hillary Clinton.\u201d<\/p>\n

Added Rep. Scott DesJarlais of Tennessee: \u201cPeople up here need to take a look at what\u2019s happening and probably get used to the idea that it\u2019s very likely Donald Trump will be our nominee.\u201d<\/p>\n

The New York real estate mogul was using a rare day in Washington to woo a Republican establishment that\u2019s been reluctant \u2014 and in some cases hell bent \u2014 on stopping his rise. Beyond mainstream Republicans, Trump also faces resistance from pro-Israel activists over what they consider a mixed record on the Middle East.<\/p>\n

He has refused to make the perennial Republican campaign promise to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, drawing boos last year from the Republican Jewish Coalition.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Trump also appeared to break with decades of U.S. precedent on aid to Israel.<\/p>\n

When a reporter noted that Trump, in his rallies, frequently says that affluent countries that accept U.S. aid \u2014 like Germany and Japan \u2014 should return the funds. The Republican front-runner was then asked if that should apply to Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Israel will do that also, yeah,\u201d Trump said, before easing back that statement minutes later.<\/p>\n

Besides his comments on Israel, socially liberal American Jews object to his controversial remarks about Mexican immigrants, women and Muslims, with some drawing analogies to the European persecution of Jews that eventually led to the Holocaust.<\/p>\n

Clinton drew a similar parallel, referencing a famous incident of a ship with Jewish refugees being turned away from the U.S. in 1939.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had dark chapters in our history before,\u201d she said. \u201cAmerica should be better than this, and I believe it\u2019s our responsibility as citizens to say so. If you see bigotry, oppose it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump, Cruz and Kasich were to address the pro-Israel group Monday evening.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP writers Andrew Taylor, Jill Colvin and Donna Cassata in Washington, Jonathan Lemire in New York and Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 A front-runner under attack from all sides, Republican Donald Trump demanded that his party\u2019s skeptical establishment embrace the inevitability of his presidential nomination as he stormed into Washington on Monday. Democrats responded by debuting a multi-pronged assault, shifting their rhetoric and resources against the man they expect to face in a contentious and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-16802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-nation-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16802\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16802"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=16802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}