ATLANTA — With Super Tuesday approaching, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz escalated their argument Saturday that Donald Trump is a conservative impostor, trying to make the case to voters they can keep the ascendant billionaire from claiming the Republican presidential nomination.
At a rally outside the Georgia Capitol, Cruz went after Trump’s positions on immigration and gun control, criticized his ethics, and hammered him for his frequent use of profanity.
“You don’t know what he’s going to say,” Cruz told reporters. “To the parents: Would you be proud of your children if they came home and repeated the words of Donald Trump?”
Rubio kept up a barrage of insults aimed at Trump. Speaking at a football stadium at Mount Paran Christian School in suburban Atlanta, Rubio said Trump has “the worst spray tan in America.”
“Donald Trump likes to sue people,” Rubio said. “He should sue whoever did that to his face.”
The quip drew laughs. Rubio quickly turned to immigration and kept up his criticism that the real estate mogul has employed people living in the country illegally.
“I will do whatever it takes,” Rubio said. “I will campaign as long as it takes.” He said: “Donald Trump, a con artist, will never get control of this party.”
Georgia is one of 11 states that will hold GOP presidential primaries Tuesday, when 595 delegates will be at stake.
Super Tuesday is the biggest single-day delegate haul of the nomination contests and, says Cruz, “the single best opportunity to defeat Donald Trump.”
Trump, the GOP front-runner who has won three states in a row after losing in Iowa’s caucuses to Cruz, held a campaign rally in Arkansas with Chris Christie, the New Jersey governor and former presidential candidate who dropped out of the race after a sixth-place finish in New Hampshire.
“This guy has a fresh mouth,” Trump said of Rubio. He called him a “light little nothing.” Their raw feud flared in the last debate, when a newly aggressive Rubio went relentlessly after the billionaire, and it hasn’t subsided since.
