Trump Go After Bush Family, Calls George W. Bush A Liar.
BERMAN: This morning, Donald Trump going right after Jeb Bush, in fact, the whole Bush family. This, after the incendiary debate in South Carolina where Donald Trump flat-out said that George W. Bush lied.</s>DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: George Bush made a mistake. We can make mistakes. But that one was a beauty. We should have never been in Iraq. They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction. There were none and they knew there were none.</s>JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I could care less about the insults Donald Trump gives to me. It's blood sport for him. He enjoys it. And I'm glad he's happy about it.</s>BUSH: But I am sick and tired of him going after my family.</s>TRUMP: The World Trade Center came down in your brother's reign. Remember that.</s>BUSH: Hold on. Let me finish.</s>BERMAN: CNN senior White House correspondent, Jim Acosta, is in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, where Donald Trump is expected to take the stage shortly -- Jim?</s>JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, John. A couple of things we'll be listening for during this event here is whether or not he continues these attacks aimed at Jeb Bush and George W. Bush. He did that during the Republican debate here in South Carolina on Saturday night. It was widely regarded as, perhaps, a blunder on his part heading into this critical week. But as we've seen with Donald Trump, when he has a perceived blunder and he has the entire Washington press saying he went over the top going after Jeb Bush and George W. Bush on Iraq and 9/11, Donald Trump has been doubling down. That's what he tends to do when there are these perceived blunders that are going about inside the media. He talked about that in a tweet earlier this morning saying, "Oh, goodness, George W. Bush is in the state of South Carolina. Can I continue to talk about Iraq and the World Trade Center? Careful." That was one of the tweets he sent out earlier this morning. Obviously Donald Trump doesn't mind the attention generated by his debate performance on Saturday night. And when you look at some of the flash polls that were conducted, after that debate, it was fairly warmly received. I have to tell you, John, when I'm out on the campaign trail with Donald Trump, there is a different reaction when he goes after the Bush family. During the debate, you heard a lot of boos in that audience. But out on the campaign trail, when he goes after Jeb Bush, when he pats himself on the back and says, I was right about the Iraq war, he gets thunderous applause. So it is revealing, the split inside the Republican Party. Donald Trump is attracting a lot of new voters, a lot of disaffected Republicans, a lot of people who say they haven't voted before. When you see those people at the rallies, they don't mind these comments about the Bush family. But that is all going to be put to the test over this next six or seven days. Lindsey Graham, Jeb Bush's chief surrogate, has been saying people in South Carolina like the Bush family, like George W. Bush, but if Donald Trump wins in a landslide Saturday night, I think that conventional wisdom has to go out the window.</s>BERMAN: All right, Jim Acosta for us in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina. Again, Donald Trump expected to speak there shortly. Also with a news conference. Curious to see what he has to say. We'll bring that to you live when it happens. In the meantime, joining us is Scottie Nell Hughes, chief political correspondent for USA Radio Network and a Trump support; Republican consultant, Bruce Haynes, who once worked for South Carolina Governor Carol Campbell, so he knows the Palmetto state well; and Bill Press, CNN political commentator, a Bernie Sanders supporter and author of "Buyers Remorse: How Obama Let Progressives Down." Bill is going to have an easy go of it because we're talking about Republicans today --</s>BERMAN: -- specifically, specifically what happened in South Carolina overnight. And if you missed it, let me give you some of the greatest hits. Watch.</s>TRUMP: Two days ago, he said he would take his pants off and moon everybody and that's fine. Nobody reports that. He gets up and says that, and then he tells me, oh, my language was a little bit rough.</s>SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If Donald Trump is president --</s>CRUZ: -- your Second Amendment will go away.</s>CRUZ: You know how I know that?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MODERATOR: Hold on, Gentlemen. I'm going to turn this car around.</s>TRUMP: -- John Roberts -- Ted Cruz, with your brother, wanted John Roberts for --</s>CRUZ: -- your principle, and I'll --</s>TRUMP: You're the single biggest liar. You're probably worse than Jeb Bush.</s>TRUMP: You're the single biggest liar.</s>CRUZ: And Donald has this weird pattern. When you point to his own record, he screams liar, liar, liar.</s>SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't know how he knows what I said on Univision. He doesn't speak Spanish. And second of all --</s>RUBIO: -- the second point I would make --</s>RUBIO: For a number of weeks now, Ted Cruz has just been telling lies. He lied about Ben Carson in Iowa. He lied about --</s>RUBIO: He lies about marriage. He's lying about all sorts of things. Now he makes things up.</s>JOHN KASICH (R-OH), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I have to tell you, this is just crazy, huh? This is just nuts, OK. Geez. Oh, man.</s>BERMAN: All right, guys. Bruce, let me ask you this. There was a time in politics, like in a lot of campaigns, you would say things about the people you were running against, but you wouldn't call them liars. That's a pretty big charge. We heard it from more than one candidate. Is this good for the Republicans running for president now?</s>BRUCE HAYNES, REPUBLICAN CONSULTANT: Well, I think we're going to find out. I mean, our sense is that it isn't. I think when you talk to people who are in the debate hall that night, there was a universal word that I heard back, and that was "regretful." People weren't really pleased with the way that the Republican brand was presented. But, again, Jim Acosta said it really well, John, the Trump voters, they want Trump to take the fight to Jeb Bush. They tell me they don't want a fourth Bush term, and they really don't care how he goes about doing that. They're upset with the way Washington has worked. He's carrying that mantle forward for them, and more power to him. So it remains to be seen if that performance cost him a lot of votes or not.</s>BERMAN: You bring up a good point. Bruce, you know South Carolina. We haven't had a lot of reliable polling in South Carolina over the last few days. I'm wondering what you're being told from your sources on the ground about the state of the race right now. Who the people voting are?</s>HAYNES: I think what we're seeing is that there's nothing that really happened in that debate to discourage the Trump voters from coming out. It may have made them -- some of the things we've heard about the language and some of the things that people are saying about Scalia may have reframed the choice for some of them. Now it's like, oh, there's a specific decision a president has to make, and here's one. And what kind of experience would Donald Trump have in really assessing a field of candidates and nominating someone to the Supreme Court. That's something some people are going to think about. This week is the week that other candidates, like Bush, Rubio, John Kasich and Ted Cruz, have an opportunity to kind of rise above the den and compete for any Trump voters who might be going wobbly and take voters. As far as the polls go, John, I think -- these debates have really been defining as to who the winners are. I personally, and the people I'm talking to, we want to see a couple more nights of calls and post debate. Kind of the two-night, three-night roll.