Billionaire real estate mogul Donald Trump blasted President Barack Obama’s senior adviser Robert Gibbs Sunday as “vicious and hateful” after the former press secretary called Trump a “right-wing nut job” on Fox News.
“I was a great student at a great school, Wharton School of Finance,” Trump told Newsmax late Sunday night. “I built a net worth in excess of $8 billion, built a tremendous company, and have employed tens of thousands of people. I hardly see where I qualify under his definition.”
“The Obama representatives like Robert Gibbs attack people viciously, but people like me will not be silent and will answer them back,” Trump said. “It is a shame that they are so vicious and hateful—and that is why the country is so terribly divided.”
“Obama and his attack dogs have nothing but hate and anger in their hearts and spew it whenever possible,” Trump added. “Obama has no solutions. Obama has failed the country and its great citizens, and they don’t like it when somebody such as myself speaks the truth about this — it hurts too much.”
During an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” Gibbs used the smear against Trump while trying to make a point about GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
Fox News host Chris Wallace had asked Gibbs about Romney’s description of the Obama campaign’s tactics as being built on “division and anger and hate.”
“I’m not going to be lectured by Mitt Romney or anybody on the Romney campaign about the tone of this campaign,” Gibbs began. “This is a guy who’s . . . auctioning off dinners with the birther in chief, right-wing-nut-job Donald Trump, who still questions whether or not the president was born in the United States of America.
“I’m happy to listen to charges and countercharges,” Gibbs added. “But the notion that we’re going to get lectured by Mitt Romney and his campaign about running a positive campaign, that’s a pill far too big to swallow.”
Trump flirted with the idea of a presidential candidacy last year and even enjoyed a brief turn in the polls as the front-runner. He first gained serious attention in March 2011 with his harsh words for China and his tough critique of the Obama administration’s weak foreign policy.
He recently declined an offer to deliver a prime-time speech at the Republican National Convention, but he has been promising to deliver a big “surprise” at the convention in Tampa, Fla., which begins on Aug. 27.
He’s also been making headlines in his day job, as the billionaire developer and household name known for bold deals. Trump is turning his attention to golf courses that he’s purchased and developed in Scotland, Los Angeles, and soon, Miami. The Miami course Trump is buying for $150 million, The Doral, features five championship golf courses and will soon be renamed Trump National Doral, The Washington Post recently reported.
Michael Cohen, special counsel to Trump, said Gibbs was clearly using Trump’s name and fame in order to distract from the nation’s worsening economic problems.
“The campaign is once again trying to distract the public from the issues plaguing this great country, namely an unsustainable debt and an unemployment rate so high that people are giving up,” Cohen said. “Mr Trump has solutions, and he speaks his mind. Obama has no solutions, so he and his attack dogs attack people instead of attacking the problems. It is a sad commentary on the office of the president of the United States.”
Gibb’s smear against Trump came on a day when remarks made by Vice President Joe Biden early last week continued to dominate the political conversation.
On Tuesday, Biden, speaking in Danville, Va., told an audience that included many African-Americans that the Romney campaign would put “y’all back in chains.”
Republicans — and even some Democrats like former Virginia Gov. Douglas Wilder — blasted the comments as racist. It was one of several gaffes that Biden made during the week, including getting the present century wrong as well as misidentifying the state in which he was speaking.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who earlier in the week questioned whether Biden had the “mental capacity” to serve as vice president, went even further on Sunday.
“Joe is a laugh line on Jay Leno; he’s not a vice president,” Giuliani said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “He’s a joke. You never know what he’s going to say.”
Former Reagan speechwriter and Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan agreed.
“If it had been a Republican vice presidential candidate who had made those gaffes, one after another, so comically, and all on tape, the subject today of the panel would be, How stupid is this person — can this person possibly govern?” Noonan said on “Meet the Press.”
And former Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum, speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union,” called on Biden to apologize.
“I saw the vice president play the race card in Virginia,” Santorum said.
Romney campaign senior adviser Ed Gillespie said personal insults and smears seem to be a tactic designed to take attention away from the economy and other vital issues.
“The Obama-Biden campaign is going to continue to try to make this about little things and distractions,” Gillespie said on “Fox News Sunday.” “I think it’s a shame that the campaign of hope and change has denigrated to one of fear and smear, but I think the American people want to have the bigger debate.”
Trump agreed.
“Robert Gibbs is nothing more than a mouthpiece for a desperate campaign that once promised us hope and change and has given us nothing but debt and unemployment,” Trump said. “Our country is in serious trouble, and something must be done.”
Read more at newsmax.com
