Donald Trump has signed onto the Republican Pledge that he will not run as an independent if he doesn’t win the party’s nomination. But the document is little more than a token gesture. If Trump decides that he wants to break with the Republican party because he doesn’t think they’re being nice to him, he’s free to do so.
That’s because the Republican pledge isn’t a legally binding document.
“I will be totally pledging my allegiance to the Republican Party and the conservative principles for which it stands,” Trump said at the announcement event. “We will go out and fight hard, and we will win. We will win.”
As the Washington Post reports:
The bustling scene, attended by a crowd of reporters and television cameras, was more political theater than th emarking of a formal pact, since Trump is under no legal obligation to abide by the political document.
A pledge from a man like Donald Trump – a man who, until he saw an opportunity to exploit, wasn’t sure he even was a Republican – isn’t worth the paper it was written on.
Mike Papantonio and Thom Hartmann discussed this on last night’s episode of The Big Picture. Watch:
