White House hopeful Donald Trump jumped far into the lead in the race for next year’s Republican nomination, a poll showed on Monday, despite backlash over his comments disparaging immigrants and US Senator and war hero John McCain.
The hotel magnate was the favorite for 24 percent of Republican and Republican-leaning independent voters, the highest percentage and widest lead so far in the campaign, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.
He far outpaced his rivals Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (13 percent) and former Florida governor Jeb Bush (12 percent). The next seven had support ranging from 8 to 3 percent.
However, the survey was conducted from Thursday to Sunday last week, and the Washington Post said most of the participants were interviewed before Trump lambasted McCain on Saturday.
Trump’s popularity among those questioned dropped significantly after that latest outburst, the Post said.
However, the first official Republican presidential debate is not due until next month, with primaries and caucuses for the party’s presidential nomination taking place next year. So polls could shift significantly in the meantime.
McCain said Trump should apologize to veterans after he dismissed the US senator’s military record, because McCain was taken prisoner during the Vietnam War.
Trump sparked outrage over the weekend when he suggested that a serviceman who was captured could not be a real hero, in reference to McCain’s time in a Vietnamese prison.
Many politicians rallied to McCain’s defense, but the defeated former presidential candidate downplayed the attack on his own record, while defending fellow veterans.
“Those who inspired us to do things that we otherwise wouldn’t have been capable of doing, those are the people that I think he owes an apology to,” McCain told MSNBC TV.
The senator, an influential Republican foreign policy hawk, said it was wrong to call into question someone’s military record because they were captured.
“I think the point here is that there are so many men and some women who served and sacrificed and happened to be held prisoner and somehow, to denigrate that in anyway, their service, I think is offensive to most of our veterans,” he said.
McCain was responding for the first time since the notoriously outspoken Trump’s astonishing attack.
McCain, a 78-year-old decorated aviator, was shot down, captured, tortured and spent five years in a prison camp during the Vietnam war.
“He’s not a war hero,” Trump told a political gathering in Iowa on Saturday. “He’s a war hero, because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured, OK?”
Trump is known for his off-the-cuff and provocative statements, but his outburst targeting McCain sparked a firestorm of bipartisan condemnation.
US Secretary of State John Kerry, a Democrat who also served during the Vietnam War, lashed out at the comment, as did former presidential candidate Mitt Romney, a Republican.
For his part, Trump again refused to back down from his remarks, saying he has been unfairly portrayed by the media.
“The media has done such a false number as usual,” Trump told NBC.
Trump said the media 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.
“Well, I’m not a fan of John McCain, he’s done a terrible job for the vets,” Trump said.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS