Donald Trump argued for a low minimum wage and cuts to foreign aid on Thursday while hailing a “love fest” press conference in New Hampshire the night before, at which he overshadowed Republican rival Jeb Bush, who spoke only a town away.  Trump bragged on MSNBC about the “more than 2,500 people” who attended the town hall event, which he said was “an evening of love, it was a love fest, and we all had a great time”.  “Those are Trump people, those are people that are going to be voting for Trump, in my opinion,” he added. “I would say, let’s say, 99% of them. I guess you’ll always have a few.”  Trump used the Wednesday night press conference to mock Bush, whom he declared a “low-energy person”.  “You know what’s happening to Jeb’s crowd?” Trump asked his audience in Derry, New Hampshire. “They’re sleeping.”  He added: “I don’t see how he’s electable.”  At his own event in the nearby town of Merrimack, Bush shed his usual tact toward Trump for more pointed criticism, telling the crowd of about 150 people that the billionaire was a fairweather conservative.  “Mr Trump doesn’t have a proven conservative record. He was a Democrat longer in the last decade than he was a Republican,” Bush said, conceding that Trump had tapped into anger about politics.  Poll averages continue to show Trump leading Bush, 24.8% to 11.2%, among Republican primary voters. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and Senator Marco Rubio trail third and fourth, followed by the remaining 13 candidates.  On Thursday, Trump said the criticism of his record related to “a fair question” and responded by comparing himself to Ronald Reagan, who was a Democrat until he switched parties at the age of 50, in 1962.  Reagan was “a Democrat with a liberal leaning or a liberal bent and became a Republican and a pretty conservative”, Trump said. “I wouldn’t say the most by any stretch but a pretty conservative Republican. And that’s where I am.  “I actually got to know Ronald Reagan,” Trump added. “I think he liked me. I liked him.”  Trump went on to say he is “by nature a somewhat conservative person” but “never looked at putting a label on myself”.  “But if you look at, you know, my general attitudes in life, I think I would certainly have the more conservative label put on me.”  The billionaire also professed admiration for Abraham Lincoln, whom he called “a fascinating guy”.  “I will read anything about Lincoln. I just find that whole era fabulous and fascinating,” he said.  Asked about his plans and positions, Trump sprinkled libertarian and moderate – if often vague – statements in with his more conservative ideas about immigration and the economy.  He suggested the US slash military spending abroad, a notion popular among supporters of Kentucky senator Rand Paul – many of whom have flocked to Trump’s banner and left Paul to fall in the polls.  “We spend more money by many, many times than anybody else,” Trump said. “The money we spend is like protecting other places, like we protect Saudi Arabia, we protect South Korea, we protect Germany, we protect so many other places. So I’m saying, ‘What are we getting out of this?’ These are competitors of ours these and they’re are economic competitors.  “There are so many places that we can cut because we have these massive deficits.”  Trump also said that in principle he supported equal pay for men and women: “If they do the same jobs they should get the same pay but it’s very hard to say what is the same job.”  But he added “it’s a very tricky question” and that he was reluctant “to categorize men and women into a particular group and particular pay scale”.  Trump’s remarks about the economy and foreign policy were broad and hawkish. He said the US should have low taxes and low minimum wages in order to compete with other countries: “I think having a low minimum wage is not a bad thing for this country.”  Asked about what the MSNBC anchors called “the Trump doctrine” in foreign policy, Trump said: “We are going to make our military so big, so strong, our powerful, we’re never going to have to use it, nobody’s going to mess with us.”  Without naming anyone specifically, he said he plans to meet with friends and experts – “the best in the world” – to discuss foreign policy. He said that he has been studying issues “for a month”.  “We’re not a respected country. We’re laughed at, we’re scoffed at, and everybody who deals with us takes advantage of us.”  On Thursday he only alluded to his aggressive immigration plans to deport undocumented migrants en masse or build “a big, beautiful, powerful wall” along the border, the policy that likely lifted him in the polls among conservative voters.  The night before, he was far more blunt to the appreciative crowd. He used the term “anchor babies” to describe children born in the US to people without papers, and suggested that their citizenship under the 14th amendment could be overturned in courts.  “There’s a very big question as to the anchor babies,” he said.  On Wednesday night Bush criticized Trump both for his “vitriolic” rhetoric and for the massive cost of the billionaire’s proposals: “The hundreds of millions it costs to implement his plans is not a conservative plan.”  Trump appeared unperturbed the next day, joking about how he was so successful at campaigning that he had even copyrighted the slogan “make America great again”.  “I can’t believe I got the copyright on that one, but I guess I have a good lawyer. That’s what I do.”
Trump and Bush trade insults during simultaneous events in Granite State, during which Republican frontrunner said crowds at Bush event were ‘sleeping’