Donald Trump calls surging Ted Cruz 'a maniac' with wrong temperament, judgment to be president
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has taken a 10-point lead in the Iowa caucuses, according to a very well regarded poll released Saturday, and so GOP presidential rival Donald Trump went on the attack on the Sunday talk shows. On CNN's State of the Union — an appearance more notable for his scolding of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia — Trump mocked Cruz's electoral strategy of never publicly criticizing Trump: "He's been so nice to me. I mean I could be saying anything and he'd say, I agree I agree." But it was Trump's comments on Fox News Sunday that drew the most attention.
When host Chris Wallace asked Trump what he thought about Cruz, Trump said, "I don’t think he is qualified to be president." Wallace asked why, and Trump lit in:
I don't think he has the right temperament. I don't think he's got the right judgment. When you look at the way he has dealt with the Senate, where he goes in there like a, you know, frankly, like a little bit of a maniac — you are never going to get things done that way.... You can't walk into the Senate and scream and call people liars, and not be able to cajole and get along with people. He'll never get anything done, and that's the problem with Ted. [Trump on Fox News]
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Cruz stuck to his version of not publicly firing shots at Trump, offering this Sunday evening rebuttal on Twitter:
The first actual votes of the 2016 election won't be until Feb. 1, in the Iowa caucuses that Trump is trying to prevent Cruz from winning.
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