Jim Rosica
Donald Trump, the frontrunner in the Republican presidential candidate field, went on the passive-aggressive Friday morning, calling fellow candidate and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush both “a nice person” and “a low-energy person.”
Trump, during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program, also opposed what he called “further gun restrictions” following this week’s murders of two broadcast news journalists in Virginia.
“The fact is, it’s not the (gun) laws,” Trump said. “You have a tremendous problem with crime. You have a tremendous problem with mental health. And in this case it was pure mental health.”
Trump, the real estate mogul turned reality show star, is polling at an average of 27.3 percent, according to Huffington Post’s Pollster report. Bush is at 8.7 percent.
Host Joe Scarborough questioned Trump on his repeated name-calling of Bush as “low-energy.”
“Are you doing that just to provoke him or do you really think the fact that you say he’s low energy would prevent him from being an effective president?” Scarborough asked.
Trump answered: “Well, I don’t want to be nasty … but I will tell you that if you look at the polls, he’s not really second anymore. He’s fourth and fifth in a lot of the polls.
“I’ve always assumed that he was going to be a primary competitor. I guess that’s why I’m hitting him harder than others,” he said.
“You know, I like him. He’s a nice person. He is a low-energy person, there’s no question about it.
“And, you know, I think we need much more than a low-energy person right now to put this country back in shape. We need tremendous energy and tremendous smarts and tremendous cunning and all of the things that other countries have.”
Journalist Mark Halperin also told Trump he’s “freaking a lot of people out” in the political and media establishment, echoing earlier comments on the program by GOP candidate Carly Fiorina.
“They’re worried now that you might be the nominee or be what they consider a disruptive force,” Halperin said.
“… You know what’s happened is, a lot of the pundits that were saying, ‘oh, he’s just kidding, he’s just playing games, it’s just for his brand, he’s just going to have a little fun,'” Trump said. “A lot of those people have come a long way.
“I’ll tell you what, there is a movement out there … I think it’s a very, very strong movement. And a lot of people are seeing it …”
