Donald Trump V. The Rules: Candidate And His Kids At A Loss

Apparently, there are some rules you can't buy your way around.

That's what Donald Trump and family have found out, anyway.

Coming straight off either a failure to understand Colorado's presidential nominating process or an unwillingness to follow its rules, Trump's kids are now blaming their failure to register for the New York Republican Primary on ... yes, those pesky rules.

In an appearance on a CNN family townhall Tuesday night, Trump and his children continued their assaults on "rules" and how you have to "follow them."

The candidate is still trying to figure out how he lost all of Colorado's delegates to Ted Cruz, and his kids won't get to vote for their dad because they missed New York's voter registration deadlines.

"New York has one of the most onerous rules in terms of registration and it required us to register a long time ago, almost close to a year ago," Ivanka Trump told Anderson Cooper. "And, we didn't do that."

The deadline to change party enrollment (Ivanka says she's an independent) was Oct. 9 — which the sibs missed well before missing a March 25 registration deadline.

(By Oct. 9, Donald Trump had already been sitting atop of the polls for months, so it's not like he wasn't a serious candidate yet.

Eric Trump, who has been outspoken alongside his dad, added that, "We didn't realize how the whole system worked."

Donald Trump seems to think the Republican party is out to get him and pointed to Colorado's results as proof. Problem is, Colorado's rules were set last year and were very public — spelling out how delegates would be selected at the local level and continue as candidates unless or until voted down.

Cruz, with a superior ground game, recognized the opportunity and seized it. Trump did not.

But instead of admitting that he got beat by a candidate who had done fare more preparation and planning than him, Trump called Cruz's tactics, "shenanigans."

"Those are the rules," Cooper said. "Didn't you know those rules?"

"I know the rules very well," Trump said, adding ... nothing about why he didn't follow them.

Image via Gage Skidmore, Flickr