Trump girds for battle with Cruz
Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Wednesday said the so-far friendly competition between himself and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is primed to get ugly now that Cruz is rising in the polls.
{mosads}“Cruz has been great to me, no matter what I say he agrees,” Trump told supporters at a rally in Manassas, Va.
“But at some point he’s going to have to say, ‘I have to attack him because otherwise I’m going to come in second place or something.’ ”
Cruz has been loath to criticize Trump, openly acknowledging that he admires the outspoken real estate mogul and intends to keep him close in hopes of one day peeling away his supporters.
But with Cruz gaining fast in the polls, Trump predicted that their current arrangement would likely be short-lived.
“They all have to go through me,” Trump said.
“They’ve all got to attack, and I love it when they attack because so far everyone who has attacked has gone bingo,” he added, pointing downward. “It’s true. They’ve gone down. They’ve gone down big league.”
As is customary for Trump at his rallies, he ticked through nearly the entirety of the GOP presidential field, insulting the candidates one by one.
Trump came up with a new dig against former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, whom he has long criticized as “low energy.”
“[Bush] stands up, he starts speaking and everybody falls asleep,” Trump said. “We could make a lot of money with him. Call him ‘SleepMaster.’ He puts people to sleep.”
Trump called Ohio Gov. John Kasich “the worst debater I’ve ever seen.”
“He’s a professional politician but he can’t speak properly,” Trump said. “He’s terrible. He’s terrible.”
The business mogul called Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) “weak on immigration,” accused him of being for “amnesty” and ripped his attendance record in the Senate.
“How would you like to be in Florida and you invest in a guy, you invest in him and you take him to heart … and he’s in there for about 12 seconds and decides he wants to run for president?,” Trump asked. “Now, why would you want a guy who doesn’t show up to vote?”
And Trump accused retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson of advocating for the elimination of Medicare, mocked Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) for his low polling numbers, and said former New York Gov. George Pataki “can’t get elected dog catcher.”
“They’re going to start falling like flies, you watch,” Trump said. “At some point they have to leave, don’t they?”
Trump also made fun of the Democrats running for president.
He said Hillary Clinton “doesn’t have the strength or the stamina to be president,” and alleged that she has to take naps after her campaign rallies.
And Trump mocked Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who recently underwent a hernia repair procedure.
“He just had a hernia operation,” Trump said. “He was carrying around the tax code he wants to make larger. It’s true. I actually made that up. He just had a hernia operation, and I hope he gets better fast.”
At one point, protesters interrupted the rally, and Trump promptly instructed the police to have them removed.
“Oh. I hear some friends,” Trump said as the protesters shouted in the back. “They don’t want to make America great again. I swear I don’t think they do. We want to be a unifier, and we have to be. I do a great job with things and [the protesters will] be a great beneficiary and maybe they don’t understand it yet. But maybe the police can move them away so we can all hear ourselves.”
Trump then turned to the law enforcement officials in the room.
“Will the police remove them very nicely, very gently please?” he said.
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