Trump pushes back on newspaper attacks, says Christie should stay in race

Donald Trump pushed back on Wednesday at the New York Daily News’ latest attack, telling Fox News the newspaper would be closing soon and that the publisher is “jealous as hell” of him.

On Wednesday, the newspaper touted Trump’s win in Tuesday’s New Hampshire Republican presidential primary as the “Dawn of the Brain Dead.” The cover featured an exaggerated image of Trump as an evil clown.

“Clown comes back to life with N.H. win as mindless zombies turn out in droves,” the paper says in its subtitle, referring to voters in the Granite State.

The billionaire businessman believes the attacks were motivated out of jealousy.

“The owner is a guy named Mort Zuckerman who’s got a total inferiority complex and he’s had [it] for years,” Trump said. “He’s jealous as hell because he would have loved to have done it himself.”

Trump also took the publisher of the New Hampshire Union Leader to task for endorsing Republican rival New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for president.

“He is a bad guy,” Trump told Fox News. “He asked me for advertising for his newspaper and he wanted me to make speeches and he wanted me to do his debate which was just before the Fox debate – the one where you drew 24 million people – and I said I could not do it.”

Trump brushed off other reasons the New Hampshire paper endorsed Christie and continued to slam the paper and its management.

“He’s a bad publisher and his paper is going down the tubes.”

As for Christie, Trump said the New Jersey governor called him Tuesday night and the two spoke. He said he has “no idea” if Christie is getting out of the race but that “ultimately, I’d love to see Chris stay in.”

“I think somebody like Jeb Bush has far less talent than Chris and he’s still in,” Trump said.