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AP Photo Cruz revels in Trump bashing

NASHUA, N.H.—Still riding a wave of confidence after winning the Iowa Caucuses, Ted Cruz was in rare form Wednesday night as he mocked Donald Trump over everything from losing Iowa to a previous record of liberal policy positions.

“Have you noticed Donald doesn’t take losing well?” he said at a town hall here. “Donald told us every day for a year he was going to win Iowa, win it big, win it ‘yuuuuuge,’” he said, poking at Trump’s speaking style.

“I don’t think people are interested in temper tantrums, or you could call it a ‘Trumpertantrum,’” he continued, when asked about a number of criticisms Trump has thrown at him recently, including that his Monday night win in Iowa was fraudulent.

Cruz’s comments came hours after his first major escalation of attacks of the day, when he suggested Trump’s temperament was so poor that he might be inclined to "nuke Denmark," and Cruz also suggested his young daughters were more mature than Trump.

On Wednesday night, Cruz gloated over a report that former Democratic President Jimmy Carter’s comment that he would prefer Trump over Cruz because Trump would be “malleable.” Cruz said he instructed his team to track down video of those remarks from Carter, who is deeply unpopular among Republicans.

“I read the article on my iPhone today, my comment to the team was, if there is video, get the video, I want the video, I’m going to pay to air Jimmy Carter’s attack on me,” he said.

When protesters interrupted Cruz, with some yelling about climate change, Cruz said it appeared that “these children attended the Donald Trump-style school of debate.”

And when he was asked about his wife’s ties to Goldman Sachs and an undisclosed loan from the bank in the Senate race, Cruz defended the move and pivoted back to Trump attacks. “Heidi and I did something that is very novel and unfamiliar to Donald: we paid it back,” he said to applause. “We have never declared bankruptcy, we have never stiffed a loan, we have never walked out on a loan, we paid it back.”

Cruz said Trump’s last financial disclosure form showed he had millions of dollars in loans, and “it could literally be billions of dollars he owes.”

“For him to make this attack, to use a New York term,” Cruz said, “is the height of chutzpah.”