Trump mocks Paul, Fiorina and Bush at rally
Donald Trump lashed out as his Republican presidential rivals at a campaign rally in New Hampshire on Friday evening.
The real estate mogul and reality TV star mocked Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) height, warned Carly Fiorina not to publicly challenge him and jabbed at former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush over an early campaign stumble about whether he would invade Iraq.
In a more-than-hour-long, unscripted, stream-of-consciousness style speech, Trump warned his rivals that everyone who has attacked him so far has only fallen in the polls, citing former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) as examples.
{mosads}Trump singled out Paul, who in recent weeks has pledged to expose Trump’s past record supporting Democratic causes.
“Rand, I’ve had you up to here,” Trump said, holding his hand halfway up his chest to indicate that’s how tall the Kentucky Republican stands.
Trump accused Paul of badgering him to contribute to his eye clinic and said he was surprised when he heard Paul “chirping” on the debate stage at him.
“It’s funny, though, because Rand Paul has been hitting me because his polls are going down,” Trump said.
Trump also blasted Fiorina, who has been critical of Trump’s remarks about Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly.
“Carly was a little nasty to me,” Trump said. “Be careful, Carly. Be careful. But actually, I can’t say anything to her because she’s a woman, and I don’t want to be accused of being tough on women.”
Trump then went into an extended riff where he imagined how he would attack Fiorina if he could.
“I promised I wouldn’t say that she ran Hewlett-Packard into the ground,” Trump said. “I said I would not say it. That her stock value tanked. That she laid off tens of thousands of people and she got viciously fired. I said I would not say it. And that she then went out and ran against Barbara Boxer for senator of California, and it’s a race that should have been won, and she lost in a landslide, and I said, I will not say that, OK? So I’m not going to say it.”
Trump was also critical of Bush, who earlier in the cycle stumbled over a question about whether he would have invaded Iraq, as his older brother, former President George W. Bush, did.
“He didn’t know the difference,” Trump said. “He couldn’t answer the question whether Iraq was a good thing or a bad thing. It’s all right to say they made a mistake, then finally after going to his pollster, who he pays a fortune to by the way, after five days he said it’s a bad thing.”
Bush has since acknowledged that the war was based on bad intelligence but has said deposing Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein turned out to be a “pretty good deal.”
Trump on Friday argued that the power vacuum in the country after Hussein was toppled led to the rise of of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
“The other day, I’m watching, and [Bush] said, ‘Well, we got Saddam Hussein out, didn’t we?’ ” Trump said. “I’m not a fan of Saddam Hussein, but he ran the place, and he had no weapons of mass destruction, and now instead of Saddam Hussein, we are far more brutal, we have ISIS and we will have Iran because they are already making deals.”
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