GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump stands only to benefit from his current scrap with Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan tells
Newsmax TV.
"It sort of elevates him as the Republican front-runner against the Democratic front-runner having a real squabble, and one that I don't think Mrs. Clinton will probably get the better of," Noonan, author of the new book
"The Time of Our Lives," told "Newsmax Prime" guest host Ric Blackwell.
The "establishment" or "professional consultant class" in Washington believes Trump will lose in a general election matchup with Clinton, Noonan said, but his followers cannot be alienated from the GOP because the GOP will never win without them.
"I just got a feeling right now that it's possible that two things are happening: One is that the party is in fact splitting with people on the ground pushing away from the party establishment in Washington, or, if Mr. Trump wins the nomination and the party stays together, it will be a different kind of party."
The party will no longer be classically conservative or conservative in the way it has been in recent decades, she said
"So these are two big developments: either a split party or a party that as long as Trump dominates has actually changed its essential nature."
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Noonan said she is disappointed in the Democrats this year.
"They have essentially one candidate who's flanked on one side by an aging Vermont socialist and on the other by a guy who's sort of like a mosquito who doesn't know where to bite," she said. "He's got nothing to lose and nothing to say. We all know it's going to be Mrs. Clinton."
If it comes down to Trump vs. Clinton, "at the very least, it'll be interesting," she said.
Noonan's latest book,
"The Time of Our Lives," is out now.
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