Alex Jaffe reports at NBC:
MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. — Among conservatives, Donald Trump can typically do no wrong — until he attacks Ted Cruz.
On Saturday, Trump drew boos from a grassroots conservative crowd during remarks at the South Carolina Tea Party Coalition Convention for his attack on Cruz’s previously undisclosed loans.
“You give a campaign contribution to Ted Cruz, you get whatever the hell you want,” he said, before boos erupted from the crowd.
Trump went on as the boos grew louder: “Say whatever you want, it’s okay, he didn’t report his bank loans. He’s got bank loans from Goldman Sachs, he’s got bank loans from Citibank, folks, and then he acts like Robin Hood?”
One man in the crowd, 71-year-old Air Force veteran Joe Bates, stood up and shouted angrily, wagging his finger at the candidate.
Trump continued: “You know, say whatever you want, but it doesn’t work that way.”
It was a stark illustration of the political perils the two candidates face in attacking each other as they sprint toward the early primary contests. Each risks losing ground among conservatives that haven’t yet made up their minds between the two candidates, or inflaming their opponent’s base against them.
With that in mind, Cruz had, up until last week, carefully avoided taking on Trump directly.
But with two weeks till the high-profile Iowa caucuses, and the two candidates just points apart in most polls of Republicans there, this week the gloves came off — culminating in a number of explosive exchanges between the two at Thursday’s debate over Cruz’s claim to U.S. citizenship and Trump’s “New York values.”
The feud boiled over to the weekend, with both Cruz and Trump trading jabs on the campaign trail — Cruz saying in upstate South Carolina that Trump had flip-flopped on key issues, and Trump previewing his Robin Hood line in New Hampshire.
Read the rest here. Here is video of Trump’s remarks that sparking disagreement from some in the audience:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UknWbQSV9CI
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