GOP Punishes Magazine for Anti-Trump Issue

Payback was swift for the National Review on Thursday after the conservative magazine published a fierce anti-Donald Trump editorial, calling him a "menace to American conservatism" and a "philosophically unmoored political opportunist." The Republican National Committee informed the magazine that it had been "disinvited" from the Feb. 25 GOP debate co-sponsored by CNN, reports Politico. National Review's "Against Trump" issue also features what it calls a "symposium" of anti-Trump views from conservatives such as Glenn Beck and Erick Erickson. "We expected this was coming," wrote publisher Jack Fowler. "Small price to pay for speaking the truth about The Donald."

National Review editor-in-chief Rich Lowry tells the Washington Post that the magazine "priced in" the possibility of losing its debate role. "We wanted to push back against this notion that it was just the establishment that was opposed to Trump, so we assembled this group of people who nobody can accuse of being the establishment," he says. In a series of angry tweets, Trump slammed the National Review as a "failing publication" that very few people read, reports Reuters. "The late, great, William F. Buckley would be ashamed of what had happened to his prize," he said. Fowler, meanwhile, tweeted that he doesn't think the RNC even gave Trump a chance to make any demands. (More Donald Trump stories.)