Trump comments on Rubio's sweat

With his candidacy in potential jeopardy Tuesday in a dozen contests that Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz are better positioned to dominate, Rubio attacked Trump’s business record hard during Thursday night’s debate in Houston. The assault intensified today when he called Trump a “con artist” and mocked his backstage preparations.

Trump, in turn, let loose on Rubio, calling him a desperate liar who lacks the demeanor to be president.

“He is a nervous Nellie,” Trump told reporters, saying Rubio applies television makeup with a trowel. “I watch him backstage. He’s a mess.”

Trump ridiculed Rubio for his profuse sweating.

“Can you imagine Putin sitting there waiting for a meeting, and Rubio walks in, and he’s totally drenched,” Trump asked. “I don’t know what it is, but I’ve never seen a human being sweat like this man sweats.”

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In a rollicking day of spectacle, spite and scorn, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey declared his allegiance to Donald J. Trump and war on Marco Rubio, describing the senator on Friday as desperate and unfit for the presidency.

The endorsement interrupted a 48-hour assault from an emboldened Mr. Rubio, who is adopting many of the real estate mogul’s crude tactics and colorful insults as he urgently tries to arrest Mr. Trump’s march to the Republican nomination.

In the span of a few hours across Texas, Mr. Rubio suggested that Mr. Trump had urinated in his trousers and used illegal immigrants to tap out his unceasing Twitter messages. Mr. Trump countered by suggesting that Mr. Rubio’s excessive perspiration had no place in the White House and brandishing a water bottle to mock the senator’s chronic thirst.

Waving the bottle across a stage at a Texas rally, pouring half its contents onto the floor and then taking giant gulps from it, Mr. Trump ridiculed his younger rival with exaggerated facial gestures. “It’s Rubio!” he shouted to loud applause and cheers.

Trump nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

(CNN)Nobel Peace Prize nominees: The Greek island groups welcoming Syrian refugees, an escaped ISIS sex slave turned women's rights activist, the negotiators who ended five decades of civil war in Colombia, National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden.

Oh, and Donald Trump.

The Republican presidential candidate, who was hosting a reality TV show at this time last year, has been nominated for the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize by a mystery patron, Kristian Berg Harpviken told CNN on Wednesday, confirming an earlier AFP report.

A respected Nobel watcher and director of the Peace Research Institute of Oslo, Harpviken said he was "committed to not reveal the nominator's name," but shared online the language from the letter, which praised Trump for "his vigorous peace through strength ideology, used as a threat weapon of deterrence against radical Islam, ISIS, nuclear Iran and Communist China."

During his campaign, Trump has repeatedly vowed to "bomb the s-- out of ISIS" and threatened to impose a protective tariff on trade with the Chinese.

The Nobel Committee, which does not reveal the details of its decision-making process, typically offers thousands of people the opportunity to nominate notable organizations and individuals for the award, which counts among its recipients Martin Luther King Jr., the Red Cross and, in 2009, President Barack Obama.

Trump, however, is not on Harpviken's shortlist, which is currently topped by Snowden and two top U.S. and Iranian nuclear negotiators. Others who were nominated but did not receive the prize include Mahatma Gandhi, Pope Francis, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Putin.

Cruz beats Trump in Iowa

DES MOINES — Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas scored a hard-fought upset win over businessman Donald Trump in the Iowa Republican caucuses Monday night, while former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont were locked in a virtual tie on the Democratic side with most of the votes counted.

Cruz made good on his bet that a methodical campaign organization would eclipse Trump’s media dominance in the first test of Republican voters. With 99 percent of the precincts reporting, Cruz was beating his rival by more than 5,100 votes, with Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida a close third.

Cruz appeared to capitalize on deep support from religious and social conservatives and showed that old-fashioned retail politicking could overcome Trump’s massive political rallies in the Hawkeye State.

“God bless the great state of Iowa,” Cruz told supporters at his campaign’s Iowa headquarters after embracing his wife, Heidi. “Tonight is a victory for the grass roots. Tonight is a victory for courageous conservatives across Iowa and all across this great nation. Iowa has sent notice that the Republican nominee and the next president of the United States will not be chosen by the media, will not be chosen by the Washington establishment, will not be chosen by the lobbyists.”

***

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Wednesday accused rival Ted Cruz of stealing a victory in the Iowa caucuses and called for another vote or nullification of Cruz's win.

Trump, who finished second behind Cruz, lit up Twitter on Wednesday with a series of posts saying the outcome was tainted because the Cruz campaign had deliberately spread misinformation about Trump's stand on Obamacare and an erroneous report that Ben Carson was dropping out of the race.

Trump had gone into Monday's caucus voting ahead of the Texas senator by five percentage points in a key poll but Cruz ended up winning, four points ahead of the New York billionaire.

"Ted Cruz didn't win Iowa, he stole it," Trump (@realDonaldTrump) tweeted. "That is why all of the polls were so wrong and why he got far more votes than anticipated. Bad!"

Several social media users tweeted screengrabs of an alleged deleted tweet from Trump's official account, in which he said Cruz "illegally" stolen the vote.

"Based on the fraud committed by Senator Ted Cruz during the Iowa caucus, either a new election should take place or Cruz results nullified," Trump wrote.

In another tweet, Trump said Cruz had lied about his opinion of President Barack Obama's healthcare program.

"And finally, Cruz strongly told thousands of caucusgoers (voters) that Trump was strongly in favor of ObamaCare and 'choice' - a total lie!" he said.

Cruz had apologized to Carson on Tuesday because of an email from his campaign before the caucuses, which are the crucial first vote in the U.S. presidential nominating process.

"The press is reporting that Dr. Ben Carson is taking time off from the campaign trail after Iowa and making a big announcement next week," the Cruz email read, according to CNN. "Please inform any Carson caucusgoers of this news and urge them to caucus for Ted Cruz."

"Many people voted for Cruz over Carson because of this Cruz fraud," Trump tweeted.

Wednesday afternoon, Cruz responded to Trump's Twitter rant.

"Yet another #Trumpertantrum," Cruz (@tedcruz) wrote in a retweet of one of Trump's posts. "@realDonaldTrump very angry w/the people of Iowa. They actually looked at his record."

Carson had tweeted his feelings about the Iowa vote on Tuesday.

"Shameless tactics & dirty political plays defined yesterdays #iacaucus," he said, using a popular hashtag to refer to the voting. "There is no place for this kind of behavior."