AutoNation CEO Leaves Republican Party Over Trump
Wednesday, 16 Mar 2016 08:51 AM
Mike Jackson, the chief executive of the nation's largest automobile retailer, said he has left the Republican Party over its failure to take on Donald Trump, who has become the front-runner for the party's presidential nomination.
"I left the Republican Party last year when they didn't take on Donald Trump early," he told CNBC. "I'm now an independent. I'm Switzerland," he said.
The New York billionaire scored big wins in Florida, Illinois and North Carolina on Tuesday which brought him closer to the 1,237 delegates he needs to win the nomination.
But one loss — in the crucial state of Ohio — left the door open for those in the party trying to stop Trump from becoming the Republican nominee for the Nov. 8 election, Reuters reported.
Trump might fall short of the majority required, enabling the party establishment to put forward another name at the July convention in Cleveland to formally pick its candidate, Reuters reported.
Party leaders are appalled at the real estate developer and reality TV personality's incendiary rhetoric and believe his policy positions are out of step with core Republican sentiment, such as his vow to deport 11 million illegal immigrants, temporarily ban Muslims from the United States and build a wall along the border with Mexico.
But the Republican establishment's bid to stop him may have come too late as a field of candidates that once included Trump and 16 high-profile party figures has dwindled to only three with Trump, 69, in command ahead of U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, 45, and Ohio Governor John Kasich, 63, who won the Ohio Republican primary on Tuesday.
Jackson had been strong supporter of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, theSun-Sentinal reported. Jackson called Kasich "competent, reasonable positive – and he's hanging by his fingernails." Jackson said he sent a contribution to Kasich's campaign.
Jackson said Marco Rubio "blundered" his chance to win the race when he "went to schoolyard gutter tactics against Donald Trump."
For his part, Trump warned of public riots if he is denied the party's presidential nomination after a string of primary election victories. In an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Trump said if he got a large number of delegates yet was denied the nomination: "I don't think you can say that we don't get it automatically. I think you'd have riots. I think you'd have riots. I'm representing many, many millions of people."
Jackson isn’t the only prominent economic voice to publicly express apprehension of a Trump presidency.
Liberal New York financier George Soros, whose effort to unseat President George W. Bush in 2004 shattered political spending records, is returning to big-ticket giving after an 11-year hiatus, Bloomberg reported.
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Soros has spent or committed more than $13 million to support Hillary Clinton and other Democrats this election cycle, already more than his total disclosed spending in the last two presidential elections combined.
Soros has expressed alarm over the past few months at the candidacies of Republicans Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. In a statement last week about a new group he's funding to increase voting by Latinos and immigrants in the election, he again mentioned the two candidates by name.
"The intense anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric that has been fueled by the Republican primary is deeply offensive," Soros said in the statement. "There should be consequences for the outrageous statements and proposals that we've regularly heard from candidates Trump and Cruz."
To be sure, Ian Winer, head of equity trading at Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles, told the Canadian news outlet BNN that U.S. stocks will "get pounded" if Trump is elected president.
“If Trump becomes president of this country, the S&P 500 will go to 1,000. People are brushing it off, but there is absolutely no way that this market—and this economy—does not get pounded,” he said. “Bad for home builders, bad for everybody, but most of all bad for the United States of America.” The S&P 500 closed Tuesday at 2015.93.
“People are very concerned in any scenario other than Hillary Clinton at this point, which is shocking in and of itself,” he said. “But she seems to be the most market-friendly person that we could have.”
MarketWatch reported that while a Trump win and his “third-grade economics” would negatively impact “pretty much anything commerce-related,” Winer did point to one area that would get a boost: “It’d be great for Canada, because there’s going to be a heckuva lot of people looking to move there permanently,” he said. “Buy Canadian real estate.”
(Newsmax wire services contributed to this report).
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