Trump reads Graham’s phone number, lashes out at GOP rival

He launched, without notes, into his normal rapid-fire denunciations of illegal immigration.

If you’re looking to get ahold of Lindsey Graham, now might be your chance.

“I don’t care if he drops out”. John McCain, the 2008 GOP presidential nominee.

At first, Trump merely referred to Graham as “a stiff”, which received subdued laughter from the crowd.

Go ahead, chatter away about how Trump clamored for a series of student draft deferments while McCain languished in a North Vietnamese prison camp.

“Give it a shot”, Trump said, urging people to call the state’s senior senator. I wrote the number down.

Trump said the press had not presented his quotes in context, stressing that he said McCain was a war hero numerous times and insisting he was attacking his post-war political record. Yet Trump, regarded by few if any analysts as electable or even truly serious about becoming president, will not only be on the stage but could try, as is his habit, to dominate it.

A phone call to the number by a Reuters reporter went to a voicemail message that said the number belonged to Graham. Trump published Univision anchor Jorge Ramos’ personal cell phone number on his Instagram account in the wake of the feud between Univision and Trump over his comments about Mexico.

The cover cartoon on this week’s New Yorker offers an apt visual metaphor for the early phase of the 2016 USA presidential election: Donald Trump flamboyantly belly-flopping into a pool, clearing out everyone else.

Lindsey Graham’s campaign manager, Christian Ferry, shrugs off Trumps behavior, commenting to the Huffington Post that Trump is showing that he is ill-prepared to be commander-in-chief.

“He’s totally about open borders and all this stuff”, Trump said.

“He resonates with me – good, bad and ugly”, said Gene Ho, another Trump backer from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, who works as a professional photographer. “Those are two bad things”. “I think Rick Perry honestly is smarter than Lindsey Graham, but what do I know?” He said that “there is no daylight between Donald Trump and the rest of the Republican field”. And the beauty of Trump staying in for ever how long is we’re gonna find what the American people actually think of this, at least as far as we can trust polling data results, a caveat on that. “People can see through the glasses”.

Trump remains unbowed. “I’m called a jackass”, he said Wednesday on CNN. “That one’s easy”. Flags will be lowered through sunset on July 25.

“Run for president”, the South Carolinian said of Trump.

Trump addressed his headline-making comments like those against McCain, giving his stances an “us vs them” mentality. Believe me. Couldn’t get a job. In a speech that nearly felt like a comedy roast of Washington, Trump flung put-downs in every direction, especially at a certain South Carolina senator who had used some possibly objectionable language to slam Trump earlier. “All these guys make a slip of the lip once in a while, you know”. But in the Cleveland debate, Trump’s performance could become the yardstick for viewers and pundits keeping score: How did he address questions that Baier put to him? “He’s in a unique position to say what is on his mind”, said Williams, who also serves on the Republican Party of Iowa State Central Committee and will remain neutral.