Who’s fired?
Trouble in Trump campaign
ATLANTA — Donald Trump’s Republican presidential primary rivals roundly criticized his misogynistic rant against Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly and demanded he apologize for the disgusting remarks.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush on Saturday hit the motormouthed mogul for insulting Kelly — and women in general — at a conservative activists’ conference and said Trump should make amends.
“Come on — give me a break. I mean, do we want to win? Do we want to insult 53% of all voters? What Donald Trump said is wrong,” Bush said to cheers at the RedState Gathering.
Conference organizer Erick Erickson cut Trump from the roster late Friday after the bombastic billionaire lashed out at Kelly, who challenged him on his past derogatory comments about women during the first big TV debate of the election cycle.
Trump had said Friday that during the Cleveland debate, “You could see there was blood coming out of (Kelly’s) eyes. Blood coming out of her — wherever.”
Bush, who has seen himself bumped to second place since Trump’s emergence in the packed GOP field, further condemned the derogatory comments.
“That is not how we win elections — and worse yet, that is not how you bring people together to solve problems. That is not the way to do it.”
“Your decision, I think, was the right one,” Bush told Erickson, who pulled Trump’s invite.
“Mr. Trump ought to apologize.”
Bush also made an indirect reference to Trump during his speech, taking a poke at the notoriously thin-skinned reality-show star for his gripes about the Cleveland showdown.
“There’s a candidate or a couple of candidates complaining that the questions were too tough. Well, you think that’s tough? How about dealing with Putin? How about dealing with the challenges that exist in our country,” Bush railed. “This is nothing.” Speaking earlier Saturday to reporters after a warmly received speech to the grassroots conference, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz — who has previously defended some of Trump’s controversial remarks on immigration – defended Kelly.
“I think every candidate should treat everyone else with civility and respect. That is a standard that I try to follow. That is a standard I hope that all of us try to aspire to,” he said.
Cruz praised Kelly as a “terrific journalist” who “did a very good job moderating the debate.”
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, the final candidate to address the RedState crowd of hundreds, sought to get the Trump issue out of the way before his talk by taking to social media.
“I agree with @CarlyFiorina, there’s no excuse for Trump’s comments. Stand with @MegynKelly,” he posted in a nod to the fellow GOP candidate and former Hewlett-Packard CEO, who had tweeted that she stood with the Fox host. Other candidates not present at RedState also chimed in, saying Erickson had done the right thing by yanking Trump's invite.
“@RealDonaldTrump comments are not worthy of the office he is seeking nor consistent w/the leadership we should expect from POTUS,” tweeted South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham.
And stumping in South Carolina Saturday, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, who during the debate had lambasted Trump for refusing to rule out a third-party run if he
loses the primary, called the billionaire a political “chameleon” and urged conservatives not to fall for his act.
“Where is our sense? Where is our common sense?” Paul pleaded.
“This is a guy who was prochoice before he was pro-life. This is a guy who was liberal before he was conservative. This is a guy who was a Democrat before he was a Republican before he was a Democrat before he was an independent before he was back to being a Republican.”
Team Trump insisted that many RedState attendees had expressed outrage about his ouster from the conference — a contention backed up by Erickson himself, who said he’d been hit with a number of pro-Trump emails filled with expletives and racial slurs.
On the ground, the reaction was mixed.
Betty Pietsch, 85, a retired government worker from Northport, Fla., who’s leaning toward supporting neurosurgeon Ben Carson in the primary, said she was “very glad” Trump got bumped.
“He scares me a little bit,” she admitted.
But Michael Pemberton, a retired Army vet from Radcliff, Ky., showed up for the day’s events with a sign reading “I Am Donald Trump: affixed to his jacket.
“Stay open to all input. If you wish to be offended, you can. That is your right. You don’t have to like Donald Trump — but listen to him,” Pemberton, 66, said.