Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump told a sold-out crowd of 20,000 people Monday evening that he’s running for the country, not for his brand.
“You know, there’s a group of pundits out there — they wear heavy glasses and they look — and they say ‘Well, he’s just doing this for fun. He’s just doing this for his brand,” the outspoken billionaire told the sea of supporters at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas.
“Like I need this for my brand,” he quipped.
Trump blasted conservative pundits, naming Karl Rove and George Will, who’ve criticized his brash campaign style, calling them “a group of losers.”
“You know, I haven’t heard the word ‘clown’ anymore,” he said, referring to one of the more popular words used to describe him in the first few weeks of his campaign.
“They’re saying the ‘silent majority” is back,” Trump said. “But maybe we should call it the noisy, the aggressive, the wanting-to-win majority.”
“We want to win. We’re tired of being pushed around by incompetent people,” he added. “We’re sick and tired of what’s happening and it’s going to change.”
Minutes before Trump took the stage, a woman introducing the GOP hopeful described his surge of support as “not a phenomenon, but a revolution.”
“I do believe that 2016 may be more historic than the election of Barack Obama,” the woman said to rousing applause.
According to earlier reports, Latino activist groups were planning to bus hundreds of counter-protesters to the event from as far away as Houston, located more than 200 miles outside of Dallas, to engage in a “march against hate.”
Meanwhile, Trump supporters were reportedly paying scalpers upwards of $200 for tickets to his campaign rally over the weekend.
The real estate mogul’s arrival in Dallas comes less than two months after his visit to the Texas-Mexico border in July. He has climbed more than 12 points in national polls of Republican voters since then, according to polling data from RealClearPolitics.
Trump will take center stage at the second Republican primary debate Wednesday in Simi Valley, Calif. where pundits predict he is likely to be challenged by fellow GOP hopefuls Carly Fiorina and Jeb Bush — both of whom he has sparred with in recent weeks.
