Haywood wasn’t alone, Trump was greeted by big applause by the Tea Party faithful Saturday afternoon.
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Cruz made sure to knock Republican candidates like Rubio who Cruz sees as insufficiently tough on immigration – which is also one of Trump’s signature issues.
“You know cities are cities, but they’re basically people, their brick and mortar and they’re people and he spoke very disparagingly about the people of New York”, Trump told the crowd.
Ted Cruz “finally went off the wagon a little bit and went a little crazy” for attacking Trump this week – calling him “a great hypocrite” for taking and failing to disclose loans that have come to light in recent days. Saturday’s tweets saw Trump testing out a variety of attacks, to see which, if any, resonate with voters.
Cruz has said questions over whether he meets the constitutional test of being a “natural born citizen” are without merit. “He wants to look like Robin Hood”.
Cruz has avoided any onstage attacks of Trump’s record since Thursday’s debate, when the two went after one another, instead unleashing his barbs for press gaggles after his events.
But the 69-year-old billionaire and real-estate tycoon found a receptive audience at the university, an evangelical bastion and a rite of passage for conservative presidential candidates from Ronald Reagan in the 1980s to Ted Cruz, Trump’s main Republican rival. In October, Levin said on his radio show that Cruz is the “most consistently conservative candidate running”.
“If Ted Cruz is so opposed to gay marriage, why did he accept money from people who espouse gay marriage?” he asked.
Trump used the opportunity to bash both President Obama and the Republican establishment.
“Believe me, if I could say liberal Jews, I would”.
He returned to the subject in an interview with CNN, taped for broadcast on Sunday, saying: “I thought it was very, very insulting”.
“Honoring the promises to the men and women who elected me is my first obligation”, he said.
“Given the fact that for much of his life, Donald was financially supporting those politicians – writing checks to Hillary Clinton, writing checks to Andrew Cuomo – it is a fair inference that he supports their policies”, Cruz said. The other came from Citibank. Goldman Sachs owns him, he will do anything they demand. He also noted: “No wonder banks do so well in the US Senate”.
Trump, for his part, backed off from his criticisms of Cruz that he had broadcast loudly all day on Saturday.
Mr Cruz responded on Monday by comparing Mr Trump unfavourably to conservative patron saint Ronald Reagan and saying he is unqualified for the presidency.
In a sign of their increasing separation from the rest of the field, Trump and Cruz have spent the past week focused on tearing each other down, ending the de facto alliance they had maintained to this point in the race.
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The split between the two is evidence of the closeness of the race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, particularly in Iowa.
