Trump Consulting With Think Tanks

Donald Trump seems to be his own man, but that does not mean that he does not lean on think tanks for help.  Here is more from Robert Costa of the Washington Post:

[Donald] Trump came out with an immigration paper today. He expects in early September, in the next few weeks, to come out with one on taxes. He's talking to different people at think tanks. He doesn't want to lose the edge he has.

Juleanna Glover, a corporate consultant and Republican policy and communications adviser who has co-hosted fundraisers for Jeb Bush, says that right-leaning think tanks would not pledge to support Trump if he became the Republican Party nominee for president.

So, which think tank does Donald Trump like and which think tank likes Donald Trump?

Heritage Foundation has done a "10 Facts About Donald Trump" piece and has written other fact-based pieces on Trump, but writers for Heritage have also criticized Trump.  And as Think Tank Watch noted before, Trump is one of the only Republicans presidential candidates who does not follow Heritage President Jim DeMint on Twitter.

Scholars at American Enterprise Institute (AEI) are worried that Trump could disrupt the 2016 elections.  They have also bashed Trump for his "disparaging comments" about women.

That said, Trump just came out saying that he is has been seeking advice from John Bolton, a former ambassador to the United Nations and a Senior Fellow at AEI.

The libertarian Cato Institute has just come out bashing Trump's new position paper on immigration policy.

We have found evidence of state-level think tankers who support Trump.  One example is Ed McMullen, co-chair of Trump's South Carolina campaign, and president of the conservative think tank South Carolina Policy Council.

On the Democratic-leaning side of think tank land, here is a Brookings Institution assessment of Donald Trump, here is a Brookings piece on how to beat Trump in the debates, and here is a Brookings piece on why you should stop laughing at Trump.

By the way, remember when Dana Milbank of the Washington Post compared Jim DeMint running the Heritage Foundation to the equivalent of Donald Trump running AEI?

Think Tank Watch should note that none of the top 10 members of Trump's inner circle appear to have any deep ties to think tanks.

AEI Trying to Shape 2016 Presidential Elections

From the Washington Post's PowerPost:

Best known for housing foreign-policy hawks and the high priests of supply-side economics, the American Enterprise Institute has long been a regular, if low-key stop for Republican presidential candidates, be it for a hand with their white papers or huddles with resident scholars like John Bolton.

But for 2016, Arthur C. Brooks — AEI’s 51-year-old, French horn-playing president — is positioning the think tank on 17th Street to be a bigger player in the presidential campaign by putting itself in the middle of its biggest debates.

Instead of hosting scattered briefings on Iraq or tax policy — and leaving it at that — Brooks envisions AEI as an engine for refashioning conservatism for a weary electorate.

Nowhere is Brooks’s approach more evident than on addressing the rising gap between the rich and the poor — and the failure of many Republicans to speak cogently about income inequality and the stagnation of the middle class.

If Brooks and AEI can help give Republicans a persuasive argument, then they might be able to take their case to Democrats and independent voters disenchanted with Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The article goes on to note that a variety of former AEI scholars have started working with 2016 presidential candidate, including Abby McCloskey, who recently left the think tank to join former Texas Gov. Rick Perry's policy shop.

Interestingly, the article says that when presidential candidates show up at AEI, they are often steered toward a meeting with Robert Doar, an AEI fellow in poverty studies.

Arthur Brooks said that the most called-upon AEI experts on poverty also include tax economist Kevin Hassett, and labor scholars Andrew Biggs and Michael Strain.  The article notes that James Pethokoukis is "plugged in" with GOP strategists.

The article also notes that AEI will co-host a Republican presidential debate, and Arthur Brooks and Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Reince Preiebus are currently working on the details of that.

Earlier this year, AEI was ranked as the world's 24th best think tank by the University of Pennsylvania think tank rankings.  It was ranked as the 12th best think tank in the United States.