UPDATE — The Donald Trump campaign says an intern is responsible for the retweet:
The young intern who accidentally did a Retweet apologizes.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 22, 2015
WASHINGTON — (CNN Donald Trump on Thursday retweeted an insult to Iowa voters, just hours after a poll showed him behind retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson in the state.
“‘@mygreenhippo #BenCarson is now leading in the #polls in #Iowa. Too much #Monsanto in the #corn creates issues in the brain? #Trump #GOP,’” Trump’s retweet states.
Monsanto is a Missouri-based agricultural corporation that produces herbicides, among other agrochemicals.
“Is Trump going after Iowans now?” Des Moines Register chief politics reporter Jennifer Jacobs wrote on Twitter, linking to the tweet.
A few hours after the initial retweet, Trump removed it from his feed and tweeted, “the young intern who accidentally did a Retweet apologizes.”
A Quinnipiac University poll of Iowa Republicans released Thursday revealed that Ben Carson has knocked Trump from his perch atop the field in Iowa with an 8 percentage point lead over the real estate mogul. This is the first major poll to find Trump trailing by a significant margin nationally or in the four early states since late June.
Trump frequently uses Twitter to speak, poke, and to retweet controversial opinions, so it’s no surprise that he’s reacting to the poll on the social platform.
When CNN asked Trump whether he endorses what he retweets this August, he said, “Well I do retweets, and I mean, to a certain extent, I do, yeah. I think that’s right. Do you want me to say no? You know, I retweet, I retweet for a reason.”
But Thursday’s retweet could offend potential supporters in the early voting state that is critical to Trump’s path to the Republican nomination.
“We’re leading in Iowa,” Trump said after a recent event in the Hawkeye State. “Organizing is very important. We have a great team, we have a great ground game, and I think we’re going to do very well, I think we’re going to do better than the polls. We have the best people, we have a tremendous group of people who are dedicated to making this really special. So Iowa has treated me from day one, they have treated me so great. And I love Iowa.”
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