It's hard to describe just how badly The Donald destroyed Jeb! in Derry, New Hampshire, Wednesday evening by holding an opposing town hall event at the very same time as Jeb!
Nothing summed it up better than MSNBC's Trump/Jeb! split screen with Trump's audio running almost continuously during primetime viewing while Jeb! was entirely silenced.
During that time, Trump tore Jeb! limb from limb. Jeb! is a "low-energy person" who was "supposed to do well in New Hampshire but has gone down like a rock," said The Donald. But honestly, Trump's pre-town hall warm up with reporters yielded one of the most effective takedowns of Jeb! imaginable after Trump was asked whether he had gotten under Jeb!'s skin. Trump's response:
"I don't know. I will tell you this—you mention the word 'skin,' he said the other day one of the dumber things I've heard ever in politics when talking about Iraq. That we the United States, he said, have to show them that we have 'skin in the game' in order to go into Iraq.
We've lost two trillion dollars, thousands of lives, wounded warriors who I love all over the place, and he's talking about 'we have to show them that we have skin in the game'? [...] Between Common Core, his 'act of love' on immigration, and 'skin in the game' with Iraq—that's the third one that we've now added—I don't see how he's electable.
And then on top of that, he talks about women's health issues, and he's against women's health. Now he then comes back a few hours later, he says he 'misspoke.' But he's bad on women's health issues."
Limb from limb. Jeb's
comments on women's health were an obvious gaffe that Trump has
touched on before. His slam on Jeb!'s embrace of Common Core and framing of immigration as an "
act of love" wasn't new either. But his critique of Jeb! on Iraq—Jeb!'s biggest achilles heel—was, dare I say it, kind of genius.
And the bundling of them together as the whole Jeb! package just reinforces for the GOP's most conservative voters exactly why they hate Jeb!, not to mention how incompetent his handling of Iraq has been.