Donald Trump, after watching the moderators of Tuesday night’s Republican debate pepper his rivals with questions about his national security strategy, essentially decided to ask CNN a question of his own: Why are you so obsessed with me?
“I think it’s very sad that CNN leads Gov. [Jeb] Bush down a road by starting off virtually with all of your questions, ‘Mr. Trump this,’ ‘Mr. Trump that,'” the GOP front-runner said.
“It’s very sad and frankly, I watched the first debate and the first long number of question were, ‘Mr. Trump said this,’ ‘Mr. Trump said that…’ These poor guys,” he added, drawing cheers from the audience.
Trump continued, this time shouting over moderator Hugh Hewitt’s attempt to interrupt. “I thought it was very unfair that virtually the entire early portion of the debate was Trump this, Trump that in order to get ratings.”
“I think it was very unprofessional,” he said.
Trump’s tirade against the host network began after Hewitt asked Bush to definitively say whether he thinks the New York businessman is fit to be commander-in-chief.
“You’ve said that Mr. Trump is not qualified to be president because he’s not qualified to deal with Vladimir Putin. Why are you better qualified to deal with Vladimir Putin than Mr. Trump?” Bush was asked.
“Well first of all, I know what I don’t know. I won’t get my information from the shows — Saturday morning or Sunday morning, I don’t know which one,” Bush responded with a jab at Trump, who’s previously said much of his national security strategy comes from what he hears from American generals on the cable news circuit.
Turning to Trump, Bush said, “the simple thing is that if you think [the debate] is tough, imagine what it’s going to be like dealing with Putin.”
Trump responded by attempting to embarrass Bush by highlighting his low poll numbers.
“I’m at 42 [percent] and you’re at 3 [percent], so so far I’m doing better,” he told Bush, matter-of-factly.
“You know you started over here Jeb and you’re moving further and further. Sooner or later you’re going to be off the stage,” Trump added, referring to Bush’s position far to the left of center stage.
The two candidates hurled insults at each other at several other points during the two-hour debate Tuesday night. One of the loudest cheers from the crowd came when Bush told Trump his brash behavior wouldn’t get him elected.
“Donald, you’re not going to be able to insult your way to the presidency, it’s just not going to happen,” he said.
