There’s an ongoing clash between Donald Trump and conservative Washington Post columnist George Will that, according to the Republican presidential candidate, goes back to a speech Will gave at the Trump-owned Mar-A-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla.
But both parties in the feud seem unclear on the details.
Will has been a regular critic of Trump since the real-estate magnate flirted with a bid for GOP presidential nomination in 2011. Will, in 2012, called Trump a “bloviating ignoramus.” Trump said that’s because in the mid-1990s, Will gave a speech at Mar-A-Lago that “bombed badly,” and he let him know it.
But in an interview with NBC in July, Trump said he didn’t actually attend the speech. In the interview, Trump was asked to respond to Will, who had alleged that Trump may be a “Democratic mole” in the 2016 race for the White House.
“He was at Mar-A-Lago years ago,” Trump said. “He spoke, I didn’t want to listen to him speak and he’s never forgiven me for the fact that I didn’t show up because I find him to be a very boring guy.”
A spokesperson for Trump did not respond to a request from the Washington Examiner media desk to clarify whether Trump attended the speech, as he said he did in 2012, or did not, as he said in July.
Will, for his part, said he doesn’t remember.
“My talk at Trump’s place was long ago and my memory about the event is hazy, but I thought he was there,” Will said in an email on Thursday. “Be that as it may, it is amusing that he thinks that I would care one way or the other.”
Will further escalated tensions with Trump in his latest Washington Post op-ed, published Wednesday night. In the column, Will says Trump is a “counterfeit Republican and no conservative,” citing his past donations to Democrats and some positions he has changed on, like abortion and healthcare policy.
“Television, which has made Trump (he is one of three candidates, with Mike Huckabee and John Kasich, who have had television shows), will unmake him, turning his shtick into a transcontinental bore,” Will wrote.
Will’s wife is an adviser to Scott Walker, the Wisconsin governor who is competing for the GOP presidential nomination. Trump has also attacked Walker’s record, saying in late July that “Wisconsin’s doing terribly.”
