Donald Trump Jr. was a fierce surrogate for his father, Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, this morning blasting Ted Cruz for the Texas senator’s delegate strategy.
‘You know, Ted Cruz has no chance of winning this without bribing the delegates,’ Trump Jr. said on State of the Union with Jake Tapper. ‘That’s his game at this point, OK, he’s mathematically eliminated, but that’s been his game from day one because he’s not an appealing candidate to the general election voter.’
The senior Trump’s win in New York on Tuesday marked more than just The Donald’s dominance in his home state, it also made it impossible for Cruz to win enough delegates to clinch the GOP nomination on the Republican National Convention’s first ballot.

Now, Cruz is counting on a contested convention, using an on-the-ground strategy in multiple states to make sure that the delegates – including those ‘bound’ to Trump on the first ballot – are actually allies of Cruz and would defect and vote for the Texan if the opportunity arises.
Trump has called the system ‘rigged,’ pointing to examples like what happened in Colorado.
That state’s Republicans didn’t hold a primary or a caucus for voters, instead holding a series of conventions for party members to pick delegates.
All of those delegates happen to be supporters of Cruz.
In Pennsylvania, which votes Tuesday, only 17 delegates are bound to the winner of the state, with voters from each congressional district picking three additional delegates to go to the convention, but those delegates presidential preferences won’t be disclosed on the GOP ballot.
Donald Trump Jr., talking to Tapper outside of Scranton, Pennsylvania, bemoaned the state’s bizarre delegate rules.
‘Jake, I’m here with two congressmen from the state of Pennsylvania and we have to print out cards because every district from the hundreds of districts in the state have three people that could serve as delegates for us or for somebody else,’ Trump Jr. said.
‘So you could actually win the state in a landslide and, of the 70-something delegates that are there, you only get 17. The other 50 and change they’re up for grabs for whoever bribes them,’ he continued.

‘I mean, this isn’t American,’ he added.

The young Trump acknowledged that there was historical precedent for some of these rules –electing people locally to head to the convention to make the best decision for those back home – but with modern technology citizens are able to bone up on the candidates before they vote.
‘I have the Library of Congress in my iPhone,’ Trump pointed out. ‘I have all the information I could possibly need.’
‘But the establishment, and the guys like Ted Cruz, they love this system because they don’t actually have to appeal to the voters. They don’t have to care what the voters said,’ the young Trump went on.
‘They just have to go grab up these umpteen people who have been party loyalists and do whatever the party says and that’s the problem in Washington,’ Trump continued.
Tapper pointed out, however, that the Trump clan could just go ahead and play this game too. ‘So are you or your sister Ivanka, or Eric, or any other member of your family, are you planning to help your dad woo delegates one by one on behalf of your father?’ the CNN host asked.
While the candidate has said he wouldn’t be doing any bribing – such as snatching delegates up in his personal jet and spoiling them at his Florida property Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump Jr. hinted that there would be some sort of charm offensive.
‘You know I think we’ll do some of that,’ Donald Trump Jr. said. ‘I think that’s natural, but, you know, I think his biggest thing is wanting to change the process.’
Sounding a lot like dad, Donald Trump Jr. noted that ‘my father could do wooing more than anyone.’
‘I mean, he could send his private plane and send them down to Doral, they could play golf for a week and then we win that delegate,’ Trump Jr. pointed out.
The young Trump said it disturbed him that the average American didn’t know that their vote may not matter because of some of the states’ delegate rules.
‘That’s not the way this country should be run,’ Trump said.