NBC came out with this poll, a segment of which was a poll of republicans'
presidential preference. They were making a big deal out of the fact that Donald Trump had polled tied for second with Mike Huckabee at 17% of republicans polled.

So they let Meredith Viera interview Trump on the Today Show. Trump came off like a raving lunatic, if you ask me. The reason he is polling as high as he is with the republican right is that he has been very vocal lately, using his celebrity to get him publicity, in challenging Obama's eligibility to be president purportedly because he wasn't really born in the US. He connects with a minority of republican voters - the so-called "birthers."

The funniest thing was when Bill Cosby came on with another African-American advocating for better education in our nation. Meredith Viera was with them also. At the end of the interview, Cosby did a little improvisational comment about Trump, in which he basically dismissed Trump as a game player who wasn't a serious candidate. But he did it in such a way as to trump Trump in celebrity brush-off. It caught Viera off-guard.

I don't know if Cosby's commentaries were the impetus, but tonight on the nightly news, they had passed on the job of "fact-checking" some of Trump's Viera interview statements onto Lisa Myers. She hasn't been getting a lot of time lately on the Nightly News. She basically said that much of what Trump said wasn't consistent with the documentation, particularly about the birther issue.

She said she contacted Trump and he said that he stood by everything he said. Trump is a candidate that is going to hurt the republicans overall. I'm sure they aren't thrilled to see him thrashing around in their camp. It's good news for the democrats.