At South Carolina event, Donald Trump keeps up criticism of Fox
De-escalation from Donald Trump is about as likely as rain in California. And it was evident Wednesday, that's still true - at least in terms of his ongoing war of words with Fox News.
"Look, I have a lot of respect for a lot of the people at Fox - [Sean] Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, and Greta [Van Susteren]," the GOP frontrunner said to reporters. "I have a lot of relationships with the people at Fox. But I haven't thought they treated me fairly."
The comments came after Trump announced on Twitter that he would be boycotting the network for the near future.
Fox brushed off the tweet with a scathing one of its own, saying in part, "When coverage doesn't go his way, he engages in personal attacks on our anchors and hosts, which has grown stale and tiresome."
Trump parachuted into South Carolina for two events - the first one was in Charleston, first, at the South Carolina African- American Chamber of Commerce, followed by a town hall with Senator Tim Scott.
Before Trump took the stage, Scott warmed up the crowd, as if he was a gospel preacher.
"I see a whole lot of Trump out there!" Scott yelled to the crowd three times, until the crowd roared its approval.
Trump was introduced to a standing ovation in front of a little more than 2,000 people. He took questions from Scott that had been submitted by audience members.
When Scott asked about whether the government should regulate the Internet, Trump said, "Well free market is imperative on the Internet and frankly, the Internet does cause problems because people are finding things out about us that they never knew before."
Trump continued. "They've hacked 30 million. The numbers vary from 10 million to 30 million to 35 million. And what happens? The government is going after the St. Louis Cardinals for hacking the Houston Astros baseball team. Can you believe this? Can you believe this? So we have our priorities a little mixed up."
Scott also asked Trump what federal departments he would gut, if elected president. "EPA is one, he said.
"You saw a couple weeks ago where they opened a door and the river is destroyed. I mean, it wasn't even the people that did it. In Colorado, the river. Beautiful river, all of a sudden turned gold and yellow and people are saying how long will this take and it was the EPA that actually did it."
Trump then went after the Education Department, which brought to mind Jeb Bush and his support for Common Core.
"You look at the Department of Education. A guy like Bush, Bush likes Common Core. He likes Common Core. He wants your children in South Carolina to be educated, think of it, he wants them to be educated through Washington through the bureaucrats."
The lightest moment of the evening came when Trump was asked about his relationship with minorities. Trump answered by referring to a poll that shows him receiving 25 percent of the black vote.
Scott - who is black - instantly interrupted and said "Let me see that!" as the crowd erupted into laughter.