DALLAS — On a crisp morning in downtown Dallas, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida on Friday picked up where he left off Thursday night on the GOP presidential debate stage in Houston, unleashing a withering assault on Republican front-runner Donald Trump.
“It’s time to pull his mask off. … What we are dealing with is a con artist,” Rubio told a crowd of about 2,000. “The charade is up. This is a con job where he’s going to Americans that are struggling, Americans that are hurting and he’s implying, ‘I’m fighting for you because I’m a tough guy.’ “
Rubio read a series of Trump tweets - what some are calling 'mean tweets' - and added punch lines. After noting several misspellings by Trump, Rubio said, "Just like Trump Tower, he must have hired a foreign worker to do his own tweets."
In what can only be described as a Trumpian performance, Rubio also joked that Trump might have wet his pants during the debate and had a sweat mustache.
As Rubio was speaking, Trump tweeted: “Lightweight choker Marco Rubio looks like a little boy on stage. Not presidential material!”
Rubio is fresh off his most aggressive debate performance yet, in which he and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas came at Trump with rapid-fire attacks in an effort to slow the real estate developer’s momentum. After Cruz won Iowa, Trump took New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.
Anne Duffy, 60, a health care consultant in Dallas, said she prefers Rubio because he isn’t a “bully” like Trump.
“I like the fact that he’s more moderate,” she said. “He seems to be able to think through his policies and articulate them better than the other candidates.”