Donald Trump sought to reassure supporters that he’ll win Iowa, despite recent polls that have shown him trailing Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in the state.
“Don’t worry; it’s just Iowa. We love Iowa. We’re going to do great in Iowa. I expect to win Iowa,” Trump said at a rally at the Westgate Resort and Casino on the eve of the next GOP debate. “This is not going to be a waste of anybody’s time, believe me. This is going to be something special.”
Since the last debate Nov. 10, Cruz, a tea party favorite, has vaulted to second place in national polls and has pulled ahead of Trump in several polls in Iowa, whose Feb. 1 caucuses will kick off the 2016 contest.
But Trump avoided criticizing Cruz during his pre-debate rally. Instead, he simultaneously predicted a “big” debate full of attacks from his rivals and shrugged off the threat they pose.
Trump on debate: ‘I think it’s going to be big’
Trump is gearing up for the next GOP debate, tonight at the Venetian hotel on the Las Vegas Strip. CNN will broadcast the main contest at 9 p.m. ET. The debate, the last until 2016, comes as Trump is facing pressure from Cruz in Iowa and criticism from an increasing number of Republicans nationally, especially over his proposed ban on Muslim immigration.
“I think it’s going to be big,” Trump said of the debate. Then, at the crowd’s urging, he called the debate “Yuuuuuge!
Trump wondered aloud which candidate would be first to attack him.
“So far everyone that’s attacked me has gone right down the tubes,” Trump said. Still, “this will not be like an evening in Paris for me.”
‘It’s common sense, really’
Trump defended his points of disagreement with GOP rivals. “We have our view. For the most part, it’s common sense, really,” he said. He told his audience: “They’re controlled like puppets, folks, believe me. I’m not controlled by anybody. I’m actually controlled by you.”
But when Trump started the speech, he was the one controlling the crowd, which he fired up by (incorrectly) suggesting that Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl — who ended up spending five years as a Taliban captive — would not serve jail time for leaving his outpost in 2009.
“Now I hear Bergdahl, no jail time for Bergdahl,” he said, to boos. “Fifty years ago, what would have happened? Boom. … Now he’s going to get nothing. He’s going to get nothing. …
“I’m just thinking of it now for the first time. If I get in, we’re going to review his case. … We’ll be reviewing Hillary Clinton’s case too.”
But Bergdahl’s case is far from over. He faces charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy in a court-martial. If convicted, he could get life in prison.
Protesters have their say
Early in the speech, a group of apparent gun-control advocates shouted at the stage, exchanged insults with Trump supporters, and scuffled with security personnel before being physically removed from the room.
Similar Incidents occurred throughout Trump’s speech, prompting the candidate at one point to say, “I don’t get it.” He then joked that he staged one protest so that television cameras would turn to capture images of the crowd.
After another protest, Trump himself entered the fray: “Do I hear some noise over there? Yes, I do … Bye-bye.”
Trump also paid the protesters a back-handed compliment, telling supporters they should have been giving Obama the same treatment: “We should have been doing that for the last seven years.”
And later, after finding that disruptive shouts were from people who support him, he mused: “They don’t make the same impact as the unfriendly ones.”
Trump says rivals ‘don’t have a chance’
Trump has certainly heard his share of criticism lately and has endured a less-than-friendly week from his GOP rivals.
“Many of them don’t have a chance. You say, ‘What are you doing? Just go home and relax,’ ” he said. “I won’t tell you the names of the ones I think are good because I don’t really want you to think about them.”
This weekend, Trump went after the main candidate challenging his dominance in the polls. On Fox News Sunday, Trump said Cruz has operated in the Senate "like a little bit of a maniac."
"I'm more capable," Trump told CNN's State of the Union. "I have a much better temperament."
The remarks drew rebukes from some of Trump’s one-time supporters in conservative talk radio.
Cruz, meanwhile, responded with a lighthearted tweet: “In honor of my friend @realDonaldTrump and good-hearted #Maniacs everywhere” linked to a video from the movie Flashdance.
Cruz busy behind the scenes
While Cruz has declined to criticize Trump in public, The New York Times reported last week that he questioned the front-runner's judgment during a closed-door meeting with donors.
After that story, Cruz issued a statement saying that voters have to make a basic decision about all candidates: “Who has the right judgment and the right experience to serve as Commander in Chief?”
And he tweeted: “The Establishment’s only hope: trump & me in a cage match. Sorry to disappoint — @realDonaldTrump is terrific. #DealWithIt”
Shortly after being passed in the polls in Iowa by Cruz, Trump called for a ban on immigration by Muslims. Much of the GOP field has disavowed or rebuked Trump’s stance.
Trump’s supporters say they will continue to back the controversial billionaire’s 2016 campaign, even if his proposal is unconstitutional. Polls have shown support for the proposal from a sizable percentage of Republican primary voters, with several surveys putting the figure at somewhere between 40% and 67%.
The crowd began lining up more than three hours before the event. A few yelled Trump-like comments at reporters as they filed past, including “left-wing media” and “make America great again.”
Voters speak
Anne Haley, 88, a retiree from Las Vegas, brought a poem she wrote for the candidate: “Vote your mind/ Vote your heart/ And Donald Trump will do his part.”
“I like the fact that he’s not a puppet and people can’t pull his strings,” Haley said.
Haley said Trump does have “a tough road ahead,” with opposition from the media and Republican opponents. “I’ll help him any way I can,” she said.
She added: “He’s a little brash sometimes, but he tells it like it is.”
After the speech, John Elizondo, 65, a chauffeur from Las Vegas, said Republicans would be wise to nominate Trump because he is the strongest and best candidate they have.
“He doesn’t follow everybody with all that politically correct crap that everybody else talks about,” he said. “We need a strong commander-in-chief.”
Not everybody in the crowd was impressed.
Chris Ulloa, 24, a Democrat who attended the event to check out Trump, denounced the businessman for seeking to divide people.
“I thought it was disgusting,” said Ulloa, a front desk agent in the hotel industry. “I thought it was completely hateful.”
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