Donald Trump’s rivals face barrage of attacks
Eyeing their first wins in a capricious campaign, Republican Donald Trump lashed out at his opponents as New Hampshire began voting in the first US presidential primary.
Trump — calling on supporters to propel him to victory — stunned, appalled, and delighted different audiences as he repeated an offensive remark from a member of the crowd about Ted Cruz’s position on waterboarding.
The billionaire businessman launched the harshest attacks — not just against Texas senator Mr Cruz, who had bested him in Iowa, but against Jeb Bush as well.
The former Florida governor was one of three Republicans hoping Marco Rubio’s recent stumbles had opened a fresh path for one of them to emerge as the more mainstream alternative to Mr Trump and Mr Cruz.
“Jeb is having some kind of a breakdown, I think,” Mr Trump told CNN, calling Mr Bush, the son and brother of presidents, an embarrassment to his family.
“I think it’s a very sad situation that’s taking place.”
The enmity was mutual. Vying for votes in Nashua, Mr Bush described his opponent variably as a loser, a liar, a whiner, and the worst choice for president.
He blasted what he said was Mr Trump’s proclivity for “insulting women, castigating Hispanics, ridiculing the disabled, and calling American POWs losers”.
Mr Trump did get in a shot at Mr Cruz during a massive rally in Manchester.
When an audience member shouted out that Mr Cruz’s position on waterboarding made him a ‘pussy’ — a vulgar term for ‘coward’ in the US — Mr Trump repeated the term and jokingly reprimanded the woman.
“The other night in the debate,” he told thousands in Manchester, “they asked Ted Cruz a serious question: What do you think of waterboarding? Is it OK? I thought he’d say absolutely, and he didn’t.
"And he said, well, he’s concerned because some people...”
A woman near the front of the crowd interrupted by shouting: “He’s a pussy!”
Mr Trump said: “You know what she just said? Shout it out, because I don’t want to say it. You’re not allowed to say that. I never expect to hear that from you again.”
Mr Trump paused, looked out at his audience and leaned into the microphone: “She said he’s a pussy.”
The audience cheered — shouting “Trump! Trump!” — before he gave the woman a mock admonishment.
Mr Trump addressed a possible third-party run by former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, calling Mr Bloomberg a friend, but acknowledging some of his shortfalls as mayor over property development.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton tried to move past talk of a shakeup in her Democratic nomination campaign andanger over comments by fans that women should feel obliged to vote for her.
Barnstorming New Hampshire with her husband and daughter, she worked to flip rival Bernie Sanders’ favoured critique against her by claiming he, too, had taken big bucks from Wall Street — if only indirectly.
Donald Trump drags American political discourse to new depths with vulgar new Cruz potshot https://t.co/XKIQba1ekA pic.twitter.com/pNk1DxOUKa
— Salon (@Salon) February 9, 2016
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