Politics

Trump to Rove: You ‘should be ashamed’ of attacks on my potential candidacy

Matthew Boyle Investigative Reporter
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Potential 2012 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump lashed out at longtime GOP consultant Karl Rove on Tuesday morning, saying he, “should be ashamed himself” for attacks he’s made on Trump’s potential candidacy.

The Washington Times’ John McCaslin asked Trump about Rove calling him a “joke candidate” on America’s Morning News. Trump responded to Rove’s charges by saying he’s the reason Barack Obama won the presidency, and played up his business history.

“I’m somebody who’s given hundreds of thousands of jobs to this economy over the years,” Trump said. “I’ve made billions of dollars and all of a sudden, for the first time in my life, somebody says, ‘joke.’”

Trump bashed Rove for his handling of former president George W. Bush. Trump said Rove “destroyed” Bush’s campaign. “If you look at the last part of Bush’s campaign, Abraham Lincoln couldn’t have beaten anybody, including Obama,” Trump said. “It was so bad. So, honestly, Karl Rove ought to go back and start thinking about other things because, what he did, indirectly, was he gave us, through President Bush, he gave us Barack Obama.”

Trump added that Rove’s criticism of him was specific to his hunt for Obama’s birth certificate. “He was referring to the birth certificate and that whole issue with Barack Obama, who is unable to supply his birth certificate, and who’s got other evidence that he may not, I just say may, may not, and I’m starting to tell you,” Trump said. “Three months ago, I would have said the may would be very small letters. Now the may is very much larger letters.”

Trump said he was “a little surprised” that Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed a bill that would have required presidential candidates to prove their American citizenship, adding that he thought the idea was, “very popular out there.”

As for how serious he is about a potential run, Trump said he “absolutely hate[s] what’s happening to our country.”

“Our country has never been in this position,” Trump said. “We a debtor nation, we’re, in a sense, a third world nation,” adding that, “other nations are ripping us off like never before.”

Matthew Boyle