Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Monday suggested that two of his opponents, Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida, acted together to embarrass him during the GOP debate last week.
“The last one, I was double-teamed,” Trump said of the debate, during a rally Monday evening in Valdosta, Ga. “These two guys, I see them backstage [and] they’re talking: ‘You do this,’ ‘You do that,’ ‘Don’t cut me off.’ And then they’re high-fiving.”
“I’m standing here in the middle — by the way, I’ve been in the middle from the beginning, the middle means like that’s the one that’s winning — and you see these two guys, and there’s a little bit of a break, and they’re both behind me shaking hands like, ‘Oh, isn’t everything wonderful.'”
Cruz and Rubio both went after the self-funded billionaire during the last debate in Houston, Texas. The conservative senators accused Trump of embracing big-goverment policies and pushed him for details on his healthcare plan. While Trump and Cruz have sparred during several recent debates, it was the first time Rubio fiercely attacked the billionaire.
Still, Trump maintains he won the debate, citing web-based polls where internet users voted him the clear favorite.
“So every single online poll … at every event I’ve been No. 1,” he said in Georgia.
Trump will host two campaign rallies Tuesday in Ohio and Kentucky before heading to Palm Beach, Fla. for a press conference his campaign teased Monday. The real estate mogul is poised to do well in many, if not all of the states set to hold their nominating contests on March 1.
