Republican congressman blasts Trump

Donovan Slack | USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Wisconsin Rep. Reid Ribble is usually an affable, low-key congressman who eschews the kind of verbal bomb-throwing that has become commonplace in today’s politics.

That was until the Summer of Trump.

The Green Bay-area Republican said the New York real estate mogul has gotten “under my skin” and is doing “serious damage to the GOP brand.” Now, Ribble is steaming mad, and unabashedly critical of what he calls the Trump “carnival.”

“You can’t be calling women bimbos, we can’t just be kicking sand in the sandbox and saying, ‘You’re dumb’ and ‘You’re a loser,’” Ribble said Thursday in an interview. “We actually need a grownup, not a 3-year-old in the White House.”

While Congress has been in summer recess – and Trump has maintained his frontrunner status in the Republican presidential field -- Ribble has quietly taken to Twitter to troll the reality TV star, taunting him for having pieces from his Trump clothing line manufactured in China and for contributing to the congressional campaign of Democrat Anthony Weiner, a New York congressman who resigned in a sexting scandal.

Ribble also assailed Trump in local radio interviews. “I reject wholeheartedly the Trump campaign for president,” he told DoorCountyDailyNews.com. “I think it works at our most base interests, it’s prurient.”

Few Republicans have stepped up to attack Trump so sharply or personally. Among the GOP field, criticism of Trump has been more, well, subdued. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush recently released a video portraying Trump as a closet liberal and his campaign posted a quiz online calling him a “germophobe.”

Ribble said he is unafraid of any backlash from Trump, who has yet to respond to him, or from voters in his district. He said he doesn’t care because the stakes are so high.

“These are very serious times, and they require serious people at the helm,” he said. “And they require people who haven’t declared bankruptcy four times but want you to believe they’re great businesspeople. We’re looking for the CEO of the largest economy in the world.”

Since Trump surged into the lead in national polls in July, he has discharged personal attacks like a machine gun. He said fellow Republican candidate Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is “truly weird” and reminds him of “a spoiled brat without a functioning brain.” Another GOP rival, Carly Fiorina has “zero chance,” he said, and listening to her for more than 10 minutes causes a “massive headache.”

Trump called GOP strategist Karl Rove “dopey,” conservative activist Erick Erickson “a major sleaze and buffoon” and Republican pollster Frank Luntz a “clown” and “low-class slob.” As for Fox News’ Megyn Kelly, he retweeted a follower who called her a “bimbo,” he said she “bombed” and her show, “The Kelly File,” was better without her.

“It’s not politics what he’s doing, it’s a carnival,” Ribble said. “It would be one thing if he was a serious policy person, but he’s not.”

He called Trump’s immigration plan “10 or 15 pages of blather” and blamed the media for not vetting his candidacy seriously, treating it instead like a reality television show.

“They’re all standing there like in shock and all, wondering what this person is going to say next, and they love all this kind of stuff, and so they keep putting him on TV, putting him on TV,” Ribble said.

“He has played the media like a fine-tuned instrument, and I’m not even sure the the media is aware they’re being played by this guy — maybe they are and they probably don’t care because they’re selling advertising.”

He does give The Donald credit for stealing the spotlight from other candidates in the race, including Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, whose support in national polls has plummeted in Trump’s shadow.

But Ribble doesn’t think the answer for the other candidates is to be tougher like Trump or to go after Trump. Nor is it to change their policy positions or respond to his.

“At this point, it’s clearly not about someone’s positions, it’s about personality,” he said. “Ignore Trump. You need to go out and be your own person.”

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Contact dslack@usatoday.com. Follow @donovanslack.