Trump’s jabs get GOP pushback
His attacks on Kelly garner hostility from rival Republicans
ATLANTA — For weeks, many Republicans have grudgingly tolerated Donald Trump as he steamrolled through the early stages of the presidential race. Others — including some of his rivals for the nomination — publicly said they welcomed his no-holds-barred approach to a political system they felt needed a jolt.
But since Thursday night’s debate, Trump’s hostile reaction to challenging questions about his treatment of women appears to have increased the number of factions within the Republican Party with interests in seeing him leave his run for president behind.
Both a prominent conservative and other candidates seeking the GOP nomination piled on Saturday, calling for Trump, the front-runner for the party’s nomination, to disavow his attacks on popular Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly.
“Give me a break. Do we want to win? Do we want to insult 53 percent of all voters?” former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said, referring to women. No mea culpa
At the prime-time debate, which attracted a record audience of 24 million viewers, Kelly pressed Trump on his comments over the years calling women “fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals.” Trump tried to defuse the question with a joke, but when challenged further, he said he would not tolerate political correctness and complained to Kelly about “the way you have treated me.”
Then, in an interview Friday with CNN, he said of Kelly: “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever. In my opinion, she was off base.” His insinuation was widely interpreted to mean that Kelly was menstruating, though in a bellicose statement Saturday, Trump’s campaign insisted that by “wherever,” he meant her nose. But it was no mea culpa.
“Only a deviant would think anything else,” the statement continued.
It was partly a reaction to the move by Erick Erickson, the founder of a major conservative blog and a Fox News contributor, to publicly disinvite Trump to his prominent gathering of conservatives here this weekend. Trump had been announced as the event’s surprise featured guest, but on Saturday, Erickson told the RedState Gathering that he found that Trump’s refusal to explain his attacks on Kelly had cost him any further benefit of the doubt.
“I know he taps into some anger that even I share with the Republican Party. And a lot of us here do too,” he said. “But if our standard-bearer has to resort to that, we need a new standard-bearer.” Rivals no longer standing by
Trump responded in his statement by calling Erickson “a total loser,” a preferred insult of the billionaire businessman.
There was also dissension within Trump’s campaign. After Trump told the Washington Post he had fired a senior advisor, Roger Stone, Stone tweeted that he had actually quit, seeing the fight with Kelly as taking away from Trump’s message on issues.
But it was too soon to say how the fallout from the debate would affect Trump’s standing with voters. Since Trump announced his run for president in June, he has made a series of inflammatory remarks that hurt his own business empire but enhanced his standing in the crowded Republican field. At his campaign kickoff event, he labeled Mexican immigrants “rapists,” which prompted his corporate partners to move quickly to sever ties. Predictions that Trump’s candidacy was doomed after comments about the war record never came true.
Rival candidates who once stood by, apparently with an eye toward eventually being able to court Trump’s supporters should he drop out of the race, now seem impatient to allow Trump to continue to set the pace in the campaign.
Carly Fiorina, the only woman in the GOP field, tweeted that she stood with Kelly.
“Mr. Trump: There. Is. No. Excuse.” her tweet read.