GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a rally Wednesday opposing the Iran nuclear deal.

GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a rally Wednesday opposing the Iran nuclear deal. Carolyn Kaster/AP

On the Hill, Trump Promises 'So Much Winning' and an End to 'Stupid' Leaders

While Republicans debate how to handle the Iran deal inside the Capitol, the message outside the building was clear.

The day after the head-count­ing ended, the talk­ing head ar­rived.

With Pres­id­ent Obama hav­ing se­cured enough Demo­crat­ic sup­port to bar a bill that would im­per­il the Ir­an nuc­le­ar deal from even com­ing to his desk, Re­pub­lic­an front-run­ner Don­ald Trump walked on stage Wed­nes­day be­fore the Cap­it­ol’s West Lawn to R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (and I Feel Fine).” He came at the in­vit­a­tion of an­oth­er GOP pres­id­en­tial can­did­ate, Sen. Ted Cruz. 

Trump de­livered his Trump­isms. He was blunt but brisk, speak­ing for only five-and-a-half minutes. He called Amer­ic­an lead­ers “very, very stu­pid people.” He said “you may get bored with win­ning” if he is elec­ted pres­id­ent be­cause “we will have so much win­ning.” Then, in a rare mo­ment, he caught him­self. “I agree—you’ll nev­er get bored with win­ning. We nev­er get bored!”

And Trump made a prom­ise con­cern­ing four Amer­ic­ans held in Ir­an that re­called memor­ies of when Ir­an re­leased host­ages on the same day Ron­ald Re­agan be­came pres­id­ent. 

“I will say this,” said Trump, dressed in a trade­mark red tie, white shirt, and blue suit be­fore an audi­ence of hun­dreds swel­ter­ing in a 91-de­gree heat. “If I win the pres­id­ency, I guar­an­tee you that those four pris­on­ers are back in our coun­try be­fore I ever take of­fice. I guar­an­tee that. They will back be­fore I ever take of­fice be­cause they know that’s what has to hap­pen, OK? They know it. And if they don’t know it I’m telling them right now.”

There were dozens and dozens of cam­er­as cap­tur­ing Trump. His speech—amp­li­fied by two dozen speak­ers—was so loud that it bounced back upon the crowd. And there were protests; United We Dream, an im­mig­rant youth net­work, held signs and tried in­ter­rupt­ing Trump to no avail, cheer­ing, “Don­ald Trump has got to go! Hey hey! Ho ho!” When asked who they were, one self-de­scribed Trump sup­port­er said they were “prob­ably some f—-ing stu­dent group who got ex­tra-cred­it points by their Lat­in teach­er to come out here.”

Be­fore the rally, there was a line of Or­tho­dox Jews chant­ing “Juda­ism yes. Zion­ism No” across the street. The Or­tho­dox Uni­on then dir­ec­ted speak­ers to them and began singing the Is­raeli na­tion­al an­them.

In­side the Cap­it­ol, the House Re­pub­lic­an lead­er­ship post­poned a pro­ced­ur­al vote ad­van­cing a res­ol­u­tion of dis­ap­prov­al. Out­side, ra­dio host Mark Lev­in said, “Barack Obama makes Neville Cham­ber­lain look like George S. Pat­ton.” Former GOP pres­id­en­tial can­did­ate Sarah Pal­in claimed that Obama didn’t carry a big stick but a selfie stick. A cam­ou­flage head­band-strapped Phil Robertson said, “You know why I love Is­rael? They wrote the Bible, that’s why I love ‘em.” 

Out­side, staffers at the Amer­ic­an Con­ser­vat­ive Uni­on wandered the lawn car­ry­ing a fake over­sized check from the White House to Ir­an for $150 bil­lion, the high-end es­tim­ate of sanc­tions re­lief awar­ded un­der the deal. Re­tired pat­ent at­tor­ney Jim Mc­Don­ald, 70, called his massive Trump sign (over 12 feet tall) a “chick mag­net.” The boos for Sen­ate Ma­jor­ity Lead­er Mitch Mc­Con­nell and House Speak­er John Boehner—ex­tend­ing for 15 seconds be­fore Rep. Dave Brat, who beat former Ma­jor­ity Lead­er Eric Can­tor last year, cut them off—were as loud as any against Hil­lary Clin­ton. And a guy wore a shirt that said, “I’d rather be wa­ter­board­ing.”

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