The top Republican presidential candidates have tued their campaigns into full-bore attack operations ahead of Super Tuesday, hurling insults at one another again on Sunday and tearing apart political stances and decades of work histories.
Front-ruer Donald Trump began a “Fox News Sunday” interview with an extended, uninterrupted attack on rival Sen. Marco Rubio, calling him a political “lightweight” and “little.”
“He couldn’t get elected dog catcher. I call him little Marco,” said Trump, making insults similar to those he’s used in recent days, with 595 delegates across 11 states up for grabs in Super Tuesday balloting.
Trump also defended attacks about hiring illegal Polish workers for a Manhattan construction project in the 1980s, saying a contractor made the hires and that the laws were different three decades ago.
Rubio and Sen. Ted Cruz’s “Fox News Sunday” interview were nearly identical, perhaps worse with Cruz accusing host Chris Wallace of using Trump opposition research to frame questions and ending the interview in silence.
Cruz, the only candidate who has so far beaten Trump in a primary or caucus, said Super Tuesday will likely be the most important day of the primary season and that Trump caot beat Democratic front-ruer Hillary Clinton.
“The only campaign that has beaten Donald Trump is mine,” said the Texas senator, arguing that 65 percent of GOP voters don’t support Trump. “The only way to beat Donald Trump is to stand behind our campaign on Super Tuesday."
Cruz, who like Rubio is of Cuban descent, became upset over continued questions by Wallace about the integrity of his campaign, following allegations about so-called dirty tricks that resulted in the forced resignation of spokesman Rick Tyler.
“You didn’t ask Donald Trump about the robo-calls from a white supremacist group saying, ‘Don’t vote for a Cuban,’ ” Cruz said.
Cruz also argued that Trump, as a businessman, gave money to members of both major political parties, including New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer, which means Trumps supports the so-called illegal immigration “amnesty bill” that Schumer, Rubio and six other senators passed.
He also hit the billionaire businessman Trump hard on failing to release his full tax retus, after Trump said, as he has before, that the delay is the result of an IRS audit.
Rubio continued to try to portray Trump as an unscrupulous businessman, again calling him a con man and suggesting his Trump University is “fake” and swindled aspiring real estate moguls like Trump.
“I believe he is a first-rate con artist and is on the verge of taking over the party of Lincoln and Reagan,” said Rubio, who appears to be the GOP establishment’s best and perhaps final chance at keeping Trump from wiing enough delegates to take the party nomination.
The Florida senator downplayed the fact that he has yet to win a primary or caucus and argued his campaign will continue even if he fails to win a state on Super Tuesday and goes 0-15.
“Absolutely, we can [continue] because we’re going to pick up a lot of delegates,” Rubio said.