The audience reacted negatively to Republican frontrunner calling Marco Rubio ‘a clown’, but Trump insisted to reporters ‘those weren’t boos, those were cheers’

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

For the first time since running for president, Donald Trump got booed on Friday among a crowd of staunch conservatives.

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At the Values Voter Summit, a gathering of social conservatives in Washington DC, Trump received an angry response after calling his fellow Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio “a clown”.

Trump later told reporters, “those weren’t boos, those were cheers.”



The Republican frontrunner has been engaged in a war of words with the Florida senator in recent days. Trump has criticized Rubio for missing votes in the Senate, and the Florida senator went after Trump as a “touchy and insecure guy” who “can’t have more than a 10-second soundbite on any key issue”.

The boos marked the first time Trump has met such a hostile reaction on the campaign trail. The Republican frontrunner, who told reporters that Rubio was “a baby” before speaking, also attacked the Florida senator’s past support for immigration reform. Trump said of Rubio: “Really, talk about weak on immigration – nobody’s weaker.”

The GOP frontrunner also said that fellow Republicans, including Rubio, criticized him solely to get attention.

Trump said of the Florida senator: “And he hits me, sometimes the Republicans do it more than anybody because they want to get into the publicity side and all your doing is hurting yourself. It’s a bad thing. All you’re doing is hurting yourselves.”

The boos weren’t the only negative reaction that Trump got from the audience. When the Republican frontrunner claimed that he won the most recent GOP debate based on polls, an audience member shouted: “No, you didn’t.”

After speaking, Trump left quickly without taking questions from reporters.