TRUMP | Why Run as GOP?

I received the following from a friend a few minutes ago and it seemed believable, although the reference to Fox News as a right-wing network in 1998 was fishy. I posted it before I checked it out because it seems to be circulating on Instagram and deserves comment and investigation regardless of its authenticity. I then proceeded immediately to investigate whether the quote is real (something I wish more people would do). My report is below and will be updated as needed.

I must report that People Magazine files do not include such a quote. Below are excerpts from Snopes.com, which rates the quote FALSE and notes that while Fox was ramping up between 1996 and 2000, it wasn't widely watched until the 2000 election of George W. Bush. Please email me at teppermarlin@aol.com if you have any other information on this topic. I will post what I learn. Otherwise I am moving on.

Here are actual quotes from People Magazine relating to Trump's political affiliations as provided by Snopes.com:

SNOPES: The image and quote attributed to Donald Trump began appearing in our inbox in mid-October 2015. Despite People's comprehensive online content archive, we found no interview or profile on Donald Trump in 1998 (or any other time) that quoted his saying anything that even vaguely resembled the words in this meme. ... Trump's political endeavors (or the absence of them) did rate some space on the magazine's pages, though. [Here are four actual People quotes:]

1. A December 1987 profile titled "Too Darn Rich" chronicled Trump's ... claims that he had been courted by both Democrats and Republicans:

House Speaker Jim Wright led a delegation to Trump's office asking him to chair a major fund-raising event for the Democratic Party. Trump is a Republican but gave the invitation serious consideration before bowing to pressure from GOP friends and turning down his Democratic suitors. Beryl Anthony Jr., the Arkansas Congressman who came up with the approach to Trump, was disappointed. "There's no question he was getting a lot of pressure from the Republicans," Anthony told a reporter. "It would have given him the opportunity to see if his temperament is sufficient, if he could stand the scrutiny."

2. In 1988, Trump launched into an impassioned political diatribe on Oprah Winfrey's daytime talk show, but he concluded by saying he "probably" wouldn't [ever] run for office. In 1998:

"My information is that Donald Trump has raised in the ballpark of $1 million for the Bush campaign and the Republican Party," said Sen. Steven Geller, president of the National Council of Legislators from Gaming States.

"I have heard from too many sources, including Republican lobbyists, that although Mr. Bush is denying it, the deal [to allow Indian casinos in Florida) has been cut," Geller said.

3. October 1999: Trump, ... announcing on CNN's Larry King Live that he was forming an exploratory committee with the intention of running for president, ... said:

I'm a registered Republican. I'm a pretty conservative guy. I'm somewhat liberal on social issues, especially health care, et cetera, but I'd be leaving another party, and I've been close to that party ... I think that nobody is really hitting it right. The Democrats are too far left. I mean, Bill Bradley, this is seriously left; he's trying to come a little more center, but he's seriously left. The Republicans are too far right. And I don't think anybody's hitting the chord, not the chord that I want hear, and not the chord that other people want to hear, and I've seen it.

4. In October 1998, Trump ran through his then-current political positions with NBC's Stone Phillips:

Mr. TRUMP: I'd like to see major tax cuts.

PHILLIPS: Along the line, for what the Republicans are talking about —eight hundred billion or so? Would you go that far?

Mr. TRUMP: Along the lines of that number, yes, approximately at that number, and could even be more.

PHILLIPS: Health care?

Mr. TRUMP: [I'm] liberal on health care, we have to take care of people that are sick.

PHILLIPS: Universal health coverage?

Mr. TRUMP: I like universal, we have to take care, there's nothing else. What's the country all about if we're not going to take care of our sick?

PHILLIPS: Abortion?

Mr. TRUMP: I hate the concept of abortion. I hate anything about abortion, and yet, I'm totally for choice. I think you have no alternative.

PHILLIPS: Gun control? Where do you stand on that?

Mr. TRUMP: If you could tell me that the bad guys, the criminals, wouldn't have guns, I'd be a hundred percent for gun control. But the fact is, if you have gun control, the only people that are going to obey the laws, are going to be the good guys. So the bad guys are going to have the guns, the good guys aren't going to have the guns, and what good does that do us? So, I'm not in favor of it.

As a factual matter, based on educational attainment in the 2010 Census , nine of the ten least well educated states voted Republican in the 2012 election.