Story highlights Donald Trump set off a firestorm with comments on immigration

Supporters praise Trump as a straight-talker

Bedford, New Hampshire (CNN) Perched on a platform in a backyard where a few hundred supporters gathered around a swimming pool, Donald Trump shuffled a stack of papers and began shouting over a loudspeaker about rape.

"Eighty percent of Central American girls and women are raped crossing into the United States!" Trump boomed into the microphone Tuesday evening as he read from a printed news story in his hand. He held up the papers. "I have hundreds of these articles. Hundreds."

"The American Dream is dead!" he continued, the sound of his voice slicing through the quiet afternoon air. "But I'm going to make it bigger, and better and stronger than ever before."

Trump, the real estate mogul turned Republican presidential candidate, has, for the time being, captured the hearts and minds—or at least the attention--of GOP primary voters. A CNN/ORC national poll released Wednesday found Trump in second place behind former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in the crowded field of Republicans seeking the White House.

Since announcing his campaign in June, Trump has attracted even more than his usual amount of controversy, particularly for comments he made in his announcement in which he called immigrants "rapists" and murderers. The remarks prompted Macy's to drop Trump-related merchandise on Wednesday. Univision decided earlier to pull out from an agreement to broadcast Trump's upcoming "Miss USA" pageant and NBCUniversal to drop him as one of their paid television personalities.

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