Trump’s South Carolina Supporter: ‘He Speaks His Mind … I Respect Him for That’
KING: “Donald Trump is escalating his feud with his GOP rivals. The billionaire presidential candidate got personal yesterday in attacks on fellow Republicans. He even gave out the cell phone number of Senator Lindsey Graham at a rally in South Carolina. Nancy Cordes was there. She joins us from Washington. Nancy, good morning.”
CORDES: “Good morning. This tension between Donald Trump and his rivals has been building for a while and it finally boiled over yesterday. What we still don't know is if everyone's got it out of their systems or if this tone is there to stay.”
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TRUMP: “What a stiff, what a stiff: Lindsey Graham.”
CORDES (voice-over): “In Bluffton, South Carolina, Trump went after the state senior senator seven times.”
TRUMP: “He doesn't seem like a very bright guy. In the private sector he couldn’t get the job, believe me. Couldn’t get the job. By the way, he's registered zero in the polls, zero.”
CORDES (voice-over): “Trump was put out because Graham had called him names on CBS This Morning or really just one name repeatedly.”
GRAHAM: “Stop being a jackass. Run for president but don't be the world's biggest jackass.”
TRUMP: “He gave me his number, and I found the card.”
CORDES (voice-over): “In a first for presidential politics, Trump retaliated by fishing out Graham's cell phone number –“
TRUMP: “202-228 – [0292]”
CORDES (voice-over): “-- and sharing it with the world.”
TRUMP: “You know, he won't fix anything but at least he'll talk to you.”
CORDES (voice-over): “Graham’s voice-mail quickly filled up. ‘Probably getting a new phone’, he tweeted. In Spartanburg, South Carolina, their fellow candidate Jeb Bush tried to tone things down.”
BUSH: “If we embrace this language of divisiveness and ugliness, we’ll never win.”
CORDES (voice-over): “But fans who waited for hours to see Trump be Trump, urged him to keep it up.”
MCGUINESS: “He speaks his mind. He says what he believes and you either accept it or you don’t. But he should not apologize for anything that he says. And I respect him for that.”
TRUMP: “We are going to turn it around.”
CORDES (voice-over): “And inside it wasn't all insults. The GOP front-runner also discussed the economy.”
TRUMP: “Every country that we do business with, looks at as a patsy. Stupid, stupid people.”
CORDES (voice-over): “And foreign policy.”
TRUMP: “I’m the only one said don't do Iraq. If you look at Reuters, July 2004, headline, Trump said don't do Iraq. And I’m the most militaristic person ever.”
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