Las Vegas — As he prepares to stand at center stage of another Republican presidential debate, Donald Trump can see the hits coming. But before a boisterous crowd of interrupting friends and foes Monday night, Trump held off on counter punches.
“They’re all coming after me,” Trump said. “I heard today, i’m watching, i’m saying ‘Man, this is, like, crazy.'”
He continued in a TV announcer voice:
"'Who's going to attack Trump first? Will it be this one. You know, he's taken down seven so far.'
"You know if you look, so far, everyone who's attacked me has gone right down the tubes. So that's a given. …
"I would say bring 'em on, who cares what the people say. But I will say it won't be easy. This will not be like an evening in paradise for me, do we agree?"
Trump avoided critiques of his Republican rivals. "I like Cruz, good guy," he said at one point of his new foil atop Iowa polls. Though Trump repeated in detail all the other polls showing him far ahead of Cruz.
Trump even took one of his common criticisms of Jeb Bush and applied it instead to the Democrats’ top candidate: “By the way, Hillary’s low-energy.”
He talked most about a general election matchup with the former secretary of state. At the urging of the crowd, he declared the prospect “yuge.”
“It will be the largest in terms of voter turnout, will be the largest election that we’ve ever had in the country,” Trump said. “I really believe that.”
The crowd was not one of Trump’s biggest – a few thousand people found their way to a massive ballroom connected to the Westgate casino – but it was a feisty one. Protesters for gun control and other issues interrupted Trump at points, to be shouted down by those nearby and removed by casino security.
At one point Trump quipped “I planted that one,” so the television cameras would turn their gaze on the crowd to show its size – a common complaint against Trump, for whom anti-media riffs are routine.
But even more supporters interrupted Trump, telling him he has nice hair or declaring their love. Said Trump at one point:
"When these four guys started jumping up and down, I thought 'Whoa, they were tough protesters.' But no, they're on my side."
They reassured him that he is likeable enough, chanting his name at the point in Trump’s hourlong performance when he turned almost introspective:
"The only thing I don't do as well on is a lot of people don't like me as much as they like other — who cares? I think I'm a nice person. Honestly, I think I'm a nice person. I think if they got to know me, they'd like me. …
"This time, I don't think nice is going to matter. They want competence. They want smarts. They want toughness."
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