MYRTLE BEACH, South Carolina — GOP frontrunner Donald Trump said that fellow GOP candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) “acts like Robin Hood” and that former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush shouldn’t run away from his last name.
Trump also touted how he has spent the least amount on his presidential campaign, but is sitting at the top of the polls, explaining that he can do the same budgeting for the country.
“He’s ashamed of his last name…he’s making a mistake,” Trump told the crowd at the South Carolina Tea Party Coalition Convention in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina on Saturday.
“Don’t do that. Call yourself Jeb Bush, it’s ok,” Trump said. “It can’t be any worse than it is now,” he added, referencing Bush’s low poll numbers.
“Jeb has spent $69 million so far…wouldn’t it be great if he could give that money to the wounded warriors instead of wasting it,” Trump added. “He’s essentially at the bottom of the barrel.”
Trump went on to say that he’s spent virtually nothing on his campaign, yet he is at the top of the GOP field.
“I just feel guilty,” he said. “I feel so guilty ’cause I haven’t spent anything and all these guys have spent tremendous amounts of money.”
He added, “I have a 24-point lead. What do I have to spend money for?”
Trump said his lead gives him an edge on media appearances. “They call it earned media,” he told the crowd.
“When other people call, they don’t want them on the show because they don’t get the ratings,” Trump said about other candidates and television interviews. “I have a lot of earned media.”
“I spend practically no money. I mean most of it is the fuel for my jet,” he said. “I’m $37.9 million under budget.”
“I spent nothing and I’m up here, other guys spent tremendous amounts of money and they’re down in the toilet,” Trump said, adding, he could “equate that to the country.”
Trump said it would be nice if America could use his campaign theory on the country, saying, “We spend the least and we have the best.”
“We need smart tough people,” he said. “What I’m going to do is, we’re going to have a country with spirit!”
“We’re going to use our smartest and our brightest people,” he explained. “I know who they are.”
He said under his administration he would have “the people that know how to do it” in charge. “They’re using people that gave campaign contributions,” he said of the current administration.
Trump went on to bash Congress and the trillion dollar omnibus bill that passed last month.
“I’m more disappointed with the Republicans,” he said. “These guys, we send them down there and they get down there and I don’t know what happens to them.”
He vowed that if elected President of the United States, he wouldn’t make terrible negotiations like President Obama.
“Obama is the worse negotiator I’ve ever seen, except when it comes to negotiating with the Republicans then he’s a great negotiator,” Trump jabbed.
He said the omnibus that Republicans passed “funds Obamacare, it funds the Syrians coming in…I don’t know what these people are thinking.”
Trump also referenced the Navy sailors that were recently captured by Iran.
“This was not a nice character,” Trump said of the Iranian man’s voice in the video that was all over the news showing the U.S. sailors kneeling on the ground. “This was a character I’d like to be doing other things with – bad guy.”
“They only released them for one reason…they’re waiting for 150 billion dollars,” Trump said about Iran.
He also slammed the recent exchange on Saturday of at least four Americans who were kept in Iran for at least seven Iranians who were being detained or charged in the United States.
“How long has this thing been going on, years and years?” Trump questioned of the negotiation to get the Americans back, one being Pastor Saeed Abedini, who was imprisoned in Iran since 2012. “We waited and waited and waited.”
“They’re getting seven people that they wanted …these are really bad dudes,” Trump said. “They’re getting essentially 22 people and $150 billion. So here’s the deal, we give them $150 billion dollars, we give them essentially 22 people, but these are people that really did have problems and we’re getting back four people that didn’t do anything wrong.”
“It’s so sad,” he said of the way the U.S. negotiates.
“We get Bergdahl, a dirty, rotten traitor,” he added, saying of the terrorists the U.S. traded for Bergdahl: “They’re back in the battlefield, or will be.”
“I’d drop him right the hell in the middle of that,” Trump said of Bergdahl, adding that at least five men lost their lives looking for Bergdahl.
Trump also referenced how he plans to build a wall on the southern border and have Mexico pay for it.
Trump said of the other candidates, “They’re saying, but how can you do that?”
“The wall is peanuts,” Trump said, adding that Mexico makes a fortune from the United States. “So, we’re going to build a wall and Mexico is going to pay for the wall.”
“They’re going to come in legally,” Trump said of the immigrants once the wall is built. “And we’re going to have a country back.”
“If somebody ever gets up there, they’re not going to want to come down very fast,” he joked, saying the wall would be very high.
Toward the end of his speech, Trump criticized fellow GOP presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), but the room of Tea Party supporters didn’t approve and booed his comment.
“He’s a very nice guy…[but] he didn’t report his bank loans…say whatever you want, he didn’t report bank loans,” Trump said of Cruz.
“He acts like Robin Hood,” he added, [it] “doesn’t work that way.”
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