WASHINGTON (AP) – Republican Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois says Donald Trump is an “Eastern, privileged, wealthy bully.”
Trump called Kirk, one of the more vulnerable GOP incumbents, a loser at the closed-door meeting with Senate Republicans on Capitol Hill on Thursday. Kirk did not attend meeting, but The Washington Post described the presidential candidate’s comments.
Asked about them later, Kirk told The Associated Press: “I’ve run for election six times in Illinois. Really tough races for the Congress and for the Senate and won every race. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”
On why Trump would say Kirk would lose: “I guess the bully side of him. We haven’t seen a personality like his too much in the Midwest. Eastern, privileged, wealthy bully. Our bullies are made of better stuff in Illinois. We’re much more practical and polite.”
“I think I’m not on the Christmas card list now,” added Kirk.
Responding to Trump’s prediction that he’d win Democratic-leaning Illinois in November, Kirk had his own prediction: “Alan Keyes, 28 percent, I think is what he’s heading toward.” Keyes, a Republican candidate for the Senate in Illinois in 2004, lost to Barack Obama by a wide margin.
