GOP to Trump: You crossed the line

July 21, 2015 23:06

The Republican establishment is making the most of the chance it had long sought to finally say this to Donald Trump: You crossed the line.

Ever since announcing his presidential run last month, the brash, unfiltered billionaire businessman has created headaches for the party. Particularly, his comments equating some Mexican immigrants to rapists and criminals left GOP leaders struggling to appease those Trump had offended without alienating conservative voters attracted to his views on combating illegal immigration.

But on Saturday, Trump seemed to hand party bosses and the pack of 2016 Republican presidential candidates a golden chance to take him down at almost no political cost -- while making themselves look magnanimous. The spark for the latest political firestorm came when the New York real estate billionaire questioned on Saturday whether Arizona Sen. John McCain, a Vietnam War veteran who languished in a prisoner of war camp for more than five years, was a genuine "war hero because he was captured."

"I like people that weren't captured, OK?" Trump said, drawing gasps and "boos" from a conservative crowd in Iowa.

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