Jake Tapper: Trump Still The Favorite
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Cable news anchor Jake Tapper doesn't see Donald Trump's popularity drying up any time soon, despite renewed criticism and outlandish statements the candidate for the Republican nomination for President has made in the last few weeks.
Tapper, Host of The Lead on CNN, told Dom Giordano on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT that, in his mind, Trump is the favorite to emerge from the Republican side of the primary process.
"At least, as of right now, I still haven't seen any evidence that Donald Trump is not going to win New Hampshire and, in all likelihood, the nomination. It doesn't mean he will, but I just haven't seen any evidence to the contrary."
He's seen Trump's candidacy survive numerous controversies and doesn't expect any one comment or event to derail the momentum.
"I would never say that he's going to be sunk. I've said that from the very beginning. Whether it's his comments about Mexican immigrants or John McCain's war heroism or Megyn Kelly or whatever, comparing Ben Carson's temper as a child to child molesters, in the sense of it being pathological or whatever the term was that he used."
On the Democratic side, Tapper acknowledged Hillary Clinton is doing a good job staying out of the limelight.
"We are covering Hillary Clinton, but she's doing a decent job of staying out of the news. Every month, when the State Department unleashes new emails, there's, depending on the news value of what's in there, we cover that, but for the most part there isn't a lot of competition there and there isn't a lot of disagreement there. Bernie Sanders has been pretty tame in terms of his comments about Hillary Clinton and she is trying to do a low on your radar campaign that gets local news but doesn't make a lot of national news."