Jeb Bush went after Donald Trump at Tuesday’s GOP presidential debate and Trump went after CNN, ripping the cable news channel for creating Trump-mania.
“It’s very sad that CNN leads Jeb Bush down a road by starting off virtually all of the questions, ‘Mr. Trump this,’ I think it’s very sad,” he said.
Trump recounted watching the undercard GOP debate earlier in the evening, criticizing that the majority of questions to the lower-polling candidates centered around him as well.
“It’s very unprofessional,” he railed, suggesting CNN is engaging in a transparent play for ratings.
Earlier in the debate, Trump defended himself against charges that he was mimicking President Obama in his calls for nation building in America rather than trying to topple Middle East dictators like Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
“We have done a tremendous disservice to humanity,” Trump said, calling the situation in the Middle East that resulted from the U.S. trying to topple dictators a “mess.”
A much less bombastic Trump said the U.S. would have been better off if it spent the trillions of dollars that went to Iraq and Afghanistan on building up America.
“I wish we had the $4 trillion or $5 trillion. I wish it was spent right here in the United States on our schools, hospitals, roads, airports and everything else that is falling apart,” Trump concluded.
Carly Fiorina then went on the attack against Trump, saying she was “amazed” to hear him talk like the Democratic president.
“That’s exactly what President Obama said,” she quipped. “I’m amazed to hear that from a Republican presidential candidate.”
And of course, the opening moments of the GOP face-off didn’t disappoint as Trump doubled down on his call to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the U.S.
“We’ve opened up a very big discussion that needed to be opened up,” he said. “People like what I say. People respect what I say.”
CNN moderator Wolf Blitzer dragged Jeb Bush into the Muslim ban debate; the struggling former Florida governor took the bait and went after Trump in an aggressive manner.
“Donald is great at the one-liners. But he’s a chaos candidate,” Bush said. “And he’d be a chaos president. He would not be the commander-in-chief we need to keep our country safe.”