Donald Trump Hits Back at ‘Brain-Dead’ Daily News Cover in Shocking Fashion

On Wednesday morning, The New York Daily News greeted Donald Trump‘s overwhelming victory in the New Hampshire Republican primary with a cover depicting Trump as a clown, and a headline declaring the victory the “Dawn of the Brain-Dead.”

Trump wasn’t about to take the insult lying down, and in an interview with Fox and Friends, lashed out at the paper by declaring it a “failing” enterprise, and by accusing its publisher of jealousy:

Kooiman: They have you pictured as an evil clown like the joker, and it says “clown comes back to life with New Hampshire win as mindless zombies turn out in droves.” Many have wondered if your enthusiasm from your crowds would turn into votes, and it has. Are headlines like this direct insults to your supporters too?

Trump: The owner of the Daily News — I think it’s out of business, they tried to sell it. People said you have to pay to buy it. In other words they had to pay them to buy it. It’s going to be closing soon I’m pretty sure. The owner is called Mort Zuckerman, who’s got a total inferiority complex and he has for years. He’s one of the guys — they do that. He’s jealous as hell, because he would have loved to have done it himself. It’s another paper going down the tubes. They do the clown thing every week. Maybe it sells, maybe it doesn’t sell. But the paper is going bad. What can I tell you?

Trump is correct that the clown motif has been a recurring theme for the Daily News, but Trump himself has gone to the troubled newspaper well more times than Marco Rubio can probably count.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.