Trump to visit Mexican border, signalling no backing down in Republican feud

NEWARK, N.J. – Donald Trump plans to go the Mexican border, a flashpoint in the Republican presidential primary contest ever since the billionaire businessman and TV personality declared that immigrants from Mexico are rapists and drug dealers.

The candidate will travel to Laredo, Texas, on Thursday, where he will hold a press conference at the border, meet members of the union that represents border control agents and speak to law enforcement officers, his campaign said.

The plan signalled no backing down — indeed, a possible further escalation — in a feud with presidential rivals and other top Republicans. The fight was sparked by his comments about immigrants last month but accelerated when he mocked John McCain’s experience as a tortured prisoner in the Vietnam war, then slammed the Arizona senator’s record on veterans issues.

Trump had shot to the top of recent polls of the crowded Republican field, but these were taken before the flare up over his comments about McCain.

The celebrity known as “The Donald” is still seen as a longshot for the Republican nomination, but his incendiary remarks have shaken up the early stages of the race, drawing attention away from other top-tier candidates like Jeb Bush, Scott Walker and Marco Rubio. The latest Trump flare-up overshadowed Tuesday’s campaign launch by John Kasich, governor of Ohio.

Meanwhile, federal regulators made public information about Trump’s wealth and financial holdings Wednesday, showing he holds leadership positions in more than 500 business entities, has assets of at least $1.4 billion and debt of at least $240 million. The forms don’t pinpoint his fortune, which he’s said is more than $10 billion, because they report figures only in broad ranges.

But the disclosure, required of all candidates, underscores his unparalleled potential financial staying power in a longshot campaign that is roiling the GOP field.

Trump’s taste for payback against those who criticize him was demonstrated Tuesday when he announced rival Republican candidate Lindsey Graham’s mobile phone number to a crowd and TV audience, resulting in jammed voice mail for the senator. This was after Graham, defending McCain, called Trump “the world’s biggest jackass.”

At the Capitol building Wednesday, Graham was chatting on his phone as he rode the elevator. Asked if he would be getting a new one, he laughed and said yes. He said later he’d be changing his number.

At one point, Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic senator, came up behind him, clapped a hand on his back and said, “I’ve been trying to call you, but I haven’t been able to get through!”

In a speech Tuesday to hundreds of supporters in South Carolina, Trump kept on McCain, accusing him of being soft on illegal immigration.

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

The real estate developer also went after others who have criticized him in recent weeks, implying that former Texas Gov. Rick Perry was unintelligent and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush weak.

McCain sparked Trump’s temper last week when the senator said the businessman’s inflammatory remarks about Mexican immigrants had brought out the “crazies.” McCain said Tuesday he would no longer respond to Trump’s comments.

Graham, a McCain friend and one of the 16 notable Republicans running for the presidential nomination, betrayed the growing exasperation and anger of many in the party when he appeared earlier on “CBS This Morning.”

“Don’t be a jackass,” Graham said. “Run for president. But don’t be the world’s biggest jackass.”

He said Trump had “crossed the line with the American people” and predicted this would be “the beginning of the end with Donald Trump.”

Trump responded during his speech by calling Graham an “idiot” and a “total lightweight,” then held up a piece of paper and read out the senator’s cellphone number to the capacity crowd of 540 people and the TV audience. He said Graham had given him the number several years ago when he’d asked him to put in a good word with a morning news show.

Elsewhere in South Carolina on Tuesday, Bush, the brother and son of presidents and a former Florida governor, walked a fine line. He criticized his fellow candidate’s rhetoric on immigration and McCain but said Trump’s supporters are “good people” with “legitimate concerns.”

“I respect the sentiments people feel when they hear Trump talk,” Bush told Republican women. “The problem with Mr. Trump’s language is that it’s divisive, it’s ugly, it’s mean-spirited,” He said: “We have to separate him from the people that have legitimate concerns about the country.”