Donald Trump defiant on business fallout amid fresh salvos on immigration
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Version 0 of 1. Donald Trump says “making America great is more important to me than my company”. In a phone interview with Greta Van Susteren of Fox News, the controversial billionaire took shots at critics, suggested Jeb Bush’s policy ideas were “baby stuff” and accidentally pressed at least one button on his telephone while talking. Trump’s business interests have suffered significant damage since his announcement speech when he suggested that undocumented immigrants crossing the border between the US and Mexico were “bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” He shot back at the latest round of companies to cancel contracts with his venues he owns. In recent days, ESPN and Nascar have cancelled events at Trump-owned properties. Trump jibed that Nascar had simply rented a ballroom from him and lost a big deposit as a result. He gleefully proclaimed: “I’ll rent it to somebody else.” The former Celebrity Apprentice host also said ESPN was being forced to hold a golf tournament at “a course which isn’t nearly as nice”. The real estate mogul also took a far more extreme stance on immigration than he had in the past. The Republican presidential hopeful claimed: “Mexico sends many criminals back in” to the US and went on to say that an illegal immigrant who allegedly killed a woman in San Francisco this week was “forced back in” to the US by Mexico. The real estate mogul also engaged in plenty of hyperbole. Trump asserted that he has been the only candidate “who has brought up illegal immigration” despite the fact that issue has been a subject of ferocious debate in American politics for decades. He also cited an article in the “Huffington Post, which has me No 1.” The article Trump cited, by associate editor Igor Bobic, was more than a little tongue-in-cheek. In the meantime, Republican insiders worried about the rise of Trump in recent polls do have at least one silver lining from his interview. Trump insisted he wasn’t planning on mounting a third party bid for the presidency and that “my thinking was to run as a Republican”. |