GOVERNOR BOBBY JINDAL: Hey how are you?
BETSY FISCHER MARTIN: What question would you ask Jeb Bush tonight?
JINDAL: I would ask him why he thinks we need to abandon our principles – why not instead embrace our principles. Why would he advocate doing that when it hasn’t worked before for the party? He said you have to be willing to lose the primary in order to win the general – that hasn’t worked. Why does he think it would actually work? Why does he think it’s smart to double down on amnesty and why does he think we need to hide our conservative beliefs – when it seems to me that voters are looking for a real alternative to this president and his path toward socialism.
BFM: And what about Trump – do you have a question for him?
JINDAL: I’ll let the moderators…maybe I shouldn’t have answered your first question. (laughter) I am sure the Fox moderators are more than capable of coming up with great questions. I’ll say this about Trump: He has tapped in folk’s frustration with political correctness. I think that the donors and party leaders in DC need to put down sharp objects, get away from the windows, they need to calm down. The reality is the American voters will pick our nominee and our president — not the donors not the party leaders — and the more they attack him, the more they strengthen him. The reality is that he has tapped into the frustration that people have with political correctness. At the end of the day, I think I am going to the be nominee and I am going to be the next president because I have that bandwidth and that backbone that voters are looking for. And any attempt to try to clear the field or appoint a candidate is going to backfire. I think that donors and party leaders just need to take a deep deep breath, relax, it’s summer – there is a long way to go in this process.
BFM: Thanks, Bobby.