The Wall Street Journal Is Speaking Out

The conservative op-ed page of The Wall Street Journal is calling on the Republican party to essentially abandon Donald Trump if he doesn’t change his ways on the campaign trail, which Trump openly says he won’t do. Meanwhile, a New York Times report links Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, to cash payments documented on a secret ledger in Ukraine.

Donald Trump vehemently states that he is who he is and will not change his tactics during this campaign. The New York Times report states that a handwritten ledger was found, where Manafort’s name was written 22 times, suggesting that he had been paid $12.7 million in cash payments over a five-year period. The Clinton camp has quickly issued a statement regarding these allegations, saying that Trump has a “responsibility” to disclose any campaign members ties to Russian or pro-Kremlin entities. Paul Manafort responded himself, saying “I have never received a single off the books cash payment, as falsely ‘reported’ by the New York Times, nor have I ever done work for the governments of Ukraine or Russia.” He called these allegations that he accepted cash payments “unfounded, silly and nonsensical”.

This report came following the Wall Street Journal ultimatum that if Trump doesn’t shape up by Labor Day, the GOP should give up and focus instead on keeping the Senate majority. The conservative paper states that it thinks that “Trump needs to stop blaming everyone else and decide if he wants to behave like someone who wants to be President- or turn the nomination over to Mike Pence.” This has become another round of Trump versus the media. Trump says he would be winning against Hillary if the media didn’t to continue to give him unfair coverage.