Donald Trump Calls Ted Cruz ‘A Little Bit Of A Maniac’ After Slipping In Iowa Poll: “I Have Far Better Judgment Than Ted”
Donald Trump says that he will run as an independent candidate if he continues to receive backlash after his Muslim ban comments, The Guardian reports.
His proposal to ban all Muslim immigrants has caused him to slip in a key Iowa poll in favor of Ted Cruz who has surged ahead by 10 percentage points. The Des Moines Register-Boomberg poll reveals that Cruz is the frontrunner in the GOP race now, just 49 days before the Iowa Caucus vote on February 1.
National poll: @realDonaldTrump leads; @tedcruz rises as @realBenCarson falls https://t.co/r6Ibyy92eJ pic.twitter.com/9xe2wM4u3r
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) December 13, 2015
In true Trump fashion, the former GOP frontrunner fired shots at Senator Cruz in a series of media interviews. He started by calling Cruz a ‘little bit of a maniac’ in an interview aired on Fox. “You look at the way he’s dealt with the Senate, where he goes in there like a – you know, frankly like a little bit of a maniac,” Trump said. “You’re never going to get things done that way.”
Who said Donald Trump doesn’t speak the truth? pic.twitter.com/ne8PxKeXl8
— Ming The Merciless (@MGliksmanMDPhD) December 13, 2015
Trump insists that Cruz’s judgement pales in comparison to his own.
“I was against going into Iraq,” Trump told CNN‘s Jake Tapper in an interview shown during CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“That’s good judgment. I was for bombing (ISIS’s) oil long before anyone else was talking about it. That’s good judgment. I have great judgment. I would say I have far better judgment than Ted.”
But all is not lost for the corn-flower haired real estate mogul. A national poll, the NBC/Wall Street poll, shows that he is still ahead of Ted Cruz. He has 27% approval versus Cruz’s 22%. But if you examine the numbers, you’ll see that more and more Republicans are uneasy about Trump’s stance on foreign policy and national security, according to The Guardian.
“We’re in medieval times. Having a strong temperament is good,” Trump told CNN when he was asked about House speaker Paul Ryan’s comments claiming his anti-Muslim comments could “ruin the party.”
Trump also openly attacked the veracity of the polling after he made his controversial statements about banning Muslims.
“I didn’t do it for polls, so I don’t care what the polls say … I don’t think the polls are accurate,” said Trump.
He also clarified the ‘specifics” of his “Muslim ban proposal.
“It’s a temporary solution until we get our hands around the problem,” Trump said. “You are going to have exceptions. You are going to have people coming in.”
Trump’s comments on Cruz have fractured a once cordial relationship between the two GOP presidential candidates. The next time they’ll both be in the same room will be at the next Republican debate on Tuesday in Las Vegas.
In his CNN interview, Trump told Tapper he is a much stronger candidate for president than Cruz because he is simply more capable and is more of a people person than the senator from Texas.
“I’m more capable. Because I have a much better temperament. Because I actually get along with people much better than he does,” he said. “You know people don’t know that about me — I actually have a great relationship with people. In fact, I was criticized in the beginning because I get along with Democrats and liberals and Republicans, and conservatives — I get along with everybody.”
Even though Donald Trump has been aiming his jabs at his fellow GOP presidential hopefuls, he isn’t about to mince words about his opponents on the side of the party line. As The Telegraph reports, Trump recently told Fox’s Chris Wallace that Hillary Clinton’s policies have killed “hundreds of thousands” of people.
“She was truly, if not the worst, one of the worst secretaries of state of the country” Trump said. “She’s killed hundreds of thousands of people with her stupidity.”
[Photo by Ian MacNichols/ Getty Images]
