Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Wednesday called Hillary Clinton “shrill” and said many of his GOP rivals were hot and sweaty during the second Republican debate, in a South Carolina speech that seemed to approach a standup act at times.
Trump spoke to the African American Chamber of Commerce, and complained that CNN stretched last week’s GOP debate to three hours to make millions of dollars selling ads. In the meantime, he said many of the Republican candidates were suffering on stage.
“That room was hot. I mean, poor Chris Christie,” he said to laughs. “No, it’s true. It’s true. No, he’s a nice guy, it wasn’t fair.”
“Rubio, I’ve never seen a young guy sweat that much,” Trump said. “No, I’ve never seen … he’s drinking water, water, water. I’ve never seen anything like this, with him with the water.”
“Huckabee. Nice guy,” Trump added. “He was seriously hot. He was soaking wet. I grabbed him around his back, I said good job, and it was soaking wet. He was drenched.”
Trump noted that he’s a self-funded candidate, and noted that other Republicans like Carly Fiorina are “fighting like hell” to raise money. He used that to jab Fiorina by saying, “her business career was a disaster,” and dismissed the idea that he can’t say that because it’s sexist.
Then Trump turned to the Democrats, namely Hillary Clinton.
“And Hillary, who’s become very shrill, you know the word shrill? She’s become shrill,” he said.
He dismissed his recent fight over whether Obama is a Muslim, and said Clinton herself questioned President Obama’s status as a U.S. citizen when she ran against him in 2008.
“In 2008, she was the original birther, she’s the one that started that whole thing,” he said.
Trump admitted during his talk that he too has been hot and sweaty during some of his campaign events around the country, because he has thousands of people coming to see him.
“It’s like a steam bath. And you lose weight. It’s a hell of a way to lose weight, I’ll tell you that,” he said.
But he said other candidates are far less likely to be using their campaign activities as a weight-loss technique.
“Well, the other candidates don’t lose any weight. You know why?” he asked. “‘Cuz nobody comes to watch them. It’s true. They have no people. No, they have no people in the room.”
