Donald Trump reviewed the Republican debate he decided to not attend Thursday, saying that his chief rival Texas Sen. Ted Cruz “got really pummeled” by the rest of the field.
“Actually, I’m glad I wasn’t there ’cause I guess all of that — he got pummeled, wow,” Trump said Friday in Nashua, New Hampshire. “And you know they didn’t even mention he was born in Canada.”
“He got beaten up pretty badly last night,” Trump added.
Trump decided to boycott the debate after feuding with Fox News over one of the debate’s moderators, Megyn Kelly, and after the network issued a statement mocking Trump.
Trump instead hosted an event Thursday night in Iowa to raise money for veterans’ causes — raking in about $6 million, including a $1 million donation of his own, for 22 veterans organizations, the campaign said.
Trump noted that skipping the debate was a “risk” given that other candidates could have shifted the dynamic of the race in Trump’s absence.
But Trump said his competing event was “a 10” and suggested he would get a boost in the polls as a result of his bold decision.
Trump’s criticism of Cruz, his closest competitor in national and Iowa polls, didn’t stop at the debate.
Trump also hammered Cruz on his Canadian birthplace, with a twist.
“Ted Cruz may not be a U.S. citizen, right? But he’s an anchor baby. No, he’s an anchor baby — Ted Cruz is an anchor baby in Canada,” Trump quipped, apparently referencing Cruz’s birth in Canada to non-Canadian parents.
Cruz’s mother was an American citizen at the time of his birth, making Cruz an American citizen by birth.
Cruz spokeswoman Catherine Frazier hit back at Trump in a statement Friday knocking the New York billionaire’s past support for legal abortion and praiseworthy comments about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“The only anchor here is the one being dragged behind the SS New York Values, causing Donald Trump’s campaign to stall out as voters learn about his affinity for Hillary Clinton and his previous statements supporting abortion,” Frazier said in a statement to CNN.