Moderator Anderson Cooper had no time for schoolyard excuses Tuesday night during the CNN Republican Town Hall, telling Donald Trump that "I didn't start it" isn't an argument that should be used by a presidential candidate.
Cooper asked Trump about his ongoing feud with rival Ted Cruz, which started after an anti-Trump super PAC circulated a racy image of Trump's wife, Melania. Trump later retweeted an image of Melania next to Cruz's wife, Heidi, in what Cooper called an "unflattering" pose. Trump said he thought the photo of Heidi was "nice," and when pressed by Cooper, said, "I didn't start it."
Cooper responded by telling the Republican frontrunner "with all due respect, that's the argument of a 5-year-old," adding that "every parent knows that." "That's the problem," Trump retorted. "Exactly that thinking is the problem this country has. I didn't start this, he started this." Trump then said Mitt Romney's "people" were behind the ad, and that Cruz supporter Romney "choked like a dog" during the 2012 election. Cooper asked Trump if he would like to leave the wives out of the race, and Trump said he would, adding that he'd also prefer to "talk about nuclear proliferation," but admitted he doesn't "let things go so easy. If I were running the country, I wouldn't have people taking advantage of the United States in trade either, believe me."