Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump on Friday came under scathing attack from rivals Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio who blasted the real estate mogul on his immigration stand and for hiring foreigners in his business projects, as the debate turned shriller ahead of the crucial “Super Tuesday”.
While Cruz called Trump, who has vowed to check migrants and transfer of jobs to non-Americans, a “crazy zealot”, in a feisty exchange of words during a primary debate in Houston, Rubio alleged that real estate mogul would have been selling watches but for the USD 200 million he inherited from his wealthy father.
The tone reflected the fierce battle underway ahead of “Super Tuesday” on March 1, when 11 states including Cruz’s huge home state of Texas go to the polls in perhaps the most consequential voting day of the 2016 primary campaign.
Rubio attacked the real estate billionaire for having “hired a significant number of people from other countries to take jobs that Americans could have filled” in Trump development projects.
He pointed to articles that described a 1980s lawsuit by a workers union against Trump for hiring 200 illegal immigrants from Poland to build Trump Tower in New York.
Trump replied back fiercely, saying “I’ve hired tens of thousands of people...You haven’t hired one person, you liar.”
He reminded Rubio of his poor performance in the last debate, saying that he had never seen that kind of a meltdown.
“This guy (Rubio) is a choke artist and this guy (Cruz) is a liar,” the billionaire-turned-politician charged the two of his presidential rivals standing on his either side.