Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has criticized Donald Trump in recent days by going after the place he's from: New York City.
This week, Cruz said Trump "embodies New York values" -- and he didn't mean it in a good way.
"Not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan. I'm just saying," Cruz added during Thursday night's debate.
Trump took exception with his comments, pointing out that the late William F. Buckley, who founded the conservative National Review, came from New York City.
"That was a very insulting statement that Ted made," Trump said. He then reminded Cruz of the "values" that New York showed after 9/11:
When the World Trade Center came down, I saw something that no place on Earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely than New York. You had two 110-story buildings come crashing down. I saw them come down. Thousands of people killed. And the cleanup started the next day, and it was the most horrific cleanup probably in the history of doing this and in construction. I was down there. And I'd never seen anything like it.
The people in New York fought and fought and fought. We saw more death -- and even the smell of death -- nobody understood it. It was with us for months. The smell, the air. And we rebuilt downtown Manhattan, and everybody in the world watched. And everybody in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers.
But despite his strong rhetoric, Trump actually wasn't as supportive of 9/11 recovery efforts as he made it sound. The group pressing for a permanent law helping 9/11 first responders with their health care twice asked Trump for his help in getting it passed. He never answered them.
Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.), the outspoken congressman from Long Island, told Cruz to "go back under a rock" this week.
New York also has places other than New York City, including areas that are quite rural and conservative.
Read more updates from the GOP debate here.
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