GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump said Monday that 2016 rival Jeb Bush is “desperate,” “pathetic,” “an embarrassment to his family,” and that Mr. Bush “goes away like a little sheep” when Mr. Trump hits back at him.
“He’s a desperate person,” Mr. Trump said on CNN. “He’s a pathetic person — he doesn’t even use his last name in his ads. He’s a sad person who has gone absolutely crazy. I mean, this guy is … a nervous wreck. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
A day out from the New Hampshire primary, Mr. Trump and Mr. Bush have been engaging in a war of words, with each man using the term “loser” to describe the other one on morning shows Monday.
Mr. Trump had been asked for a response to a tweet that Mr. Bush, the former Florida governor, sent Monday morning: “.@realDonaldTrump, you aren’t just a loser, you are a liar and a whiner. John McCain is a hero. Over and out.”
Last summer, Mr. Trump had said Mr. McCain, the Arizona senator and 2008 GOP presidential nominee who was held captive in Vietnam for more than five years, is a war hero because “he was captured.”
“I like people that weren’t captured, OK?” Mr. Trump said then. “He’s a war hero because he was captured, OK?”
Mr. Trump had also said that he supported and raised a lot of money for Mr. McCain.
“I supported him; he lost, he let us down,” Mr. Trump said in July. “I never liked him as much after that, ’cause I don’t like losers.”
On Monday, Mr. Trump said he gets along “very well” with Mr. McCain.
“I was on John McCain’s committee for his election to try [and] help him get elected — didn’t work out for him, but that’s OK,” Mr. Trump said. “John McCain — he’s fine. I like John McCain. And I know he says that I called John McCain all sorts of names. I call everybody names.
“Actually, the person I [call] the names is Jeb, because Jeb is in favor of Common Core,” he said. “He’s weak on immigration.”
Mr. Trump has been leading in public polls on New Hampshire, with Mr. Bush part of a crowded group jockeying for space behind the billionaire businessman.
Mr. Trump went on to call Mr. Bush a “failed candidate” and a “laughingstock.”
“I’m not a whiner — I get things done,” Mr. Trump said. “Look, Jeb is the kind of a guy, if you weren’t in government, nobody would give him a job. Couldn’t get a job.”
“He’s got a failed campaign, he’s a nervous wreck, he’s probably going to be the last of the governors, I would say — certainly, he’s the least talented of the governors,” Mr. Trump said.
“What he does is he goes around saying, I’m the only one to [have] courage to go after Trump,” he said. “What courage is it? He says nasty things, I always put him down on the dais and he goes away like a little sheep.
“Jeb is having some kind of a breakdown, I think, and you know, look — he’s an embarrassment to his family,” Mr. Trump said. “He has to bring his mother out and walk his mother around at 90 years old. I think it’s a very sad situation that’s taking place.”
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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