In the least surprising news of the election cycle, Donald Trump signaled today that he would happily back out of his signed pledge to support the eventual Republican nominee and not run as an independent if he doesn’t win the nomination. The pledge, negotiated with a petrified Republican party in an embarrassing charade last December, was never worth the paper it was printed on.

Brad Mielke of ABC News reports that Donald Trump said today: “I signed a pledge, but it’s a double-edged pledge. As far as I’m concerned they’re in default of their pledge.”


Trump’s loyalty pledge was contingent on the Republican party treating him “fairly,” a metric determined by…Donald J. Trump.

It might not matter — after a strong second in Iowa and a win in New Hampshire, polls show Trump with a massive lead in South Carolina. If he was a normal candidate, he would already have been declared not just the frontrunner but the inevitable nominee.


Trump’s comments today indicate that even if the GOP establishment manages to stop him from getting the nomination (not easy!), Trump is willing to throw the general election into chaos with an independent run.