Donald Trump declares victory in Michigan and Mississippi, attacks friends, rivals, and China
At a Trump golf course in Jupiter, Florida, on Tuesday night, Donald Trump declared victory in the Michigan and Mississippi primaries in a wide-ranging and idiosyncratic speech and press conference. He started with the Republican efforts to block his path to the nomination. "I don't think I've ever had so many horrible, horrible things said about me in one week," he said, then jokingly thanked "the special interests and the lobbyists" for attacking him and angering his base. Many of the lobbyists and insiders are his friends, the casino magnate said, but "they just have to gamble — they just have to do it."
Trump then turned his ire on Mitt Romney, saying Romeny's speech hitting Trump as a fraudulent business failure just "wasn't becoming, honestly." To prove his point, he said that many of the businesses Romney had said folded were alive and well, hawking them one by one. He even promised to restart Trump University "as soon as the lawsuits are settled."
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In the press conference, Trump blamed America's loss of manufacturing jobs on China and other countries devaluing their currencies, called the conservative critics who disagree with him "eggheads" with no common sense, acknowledged that one of the secrets to his success is discerning frugality — "people say I don't pay bills — I don't pay bills if it wasn't a job well done" — and tried to dispel fears that he would be an embarrassment to America. "If I want to, I can be more presidential than anybody," Trump said, "more presidential than anybody other than the great Abe Lincoln — he was very presidential."
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