WASHINGTON (CNN) — Republican presidential candidate Bobby Jindal unleashed Thursday a relentless string of attacks on GOP front-runner Donald Trump, calling him a “non-serious carnival act” who should return to reality TV after a summer fling with politics.
“The Donald Trump act is great, and the idea of Donald Trump is great,” Jindal said during a speech at the National Press Club. “But the reality of Donald Trump is absurd.”
The Louisiana governor developed new lines of attack to hit Trump while also recycling old barbs that other candidates have used, like suggesting Trump is not a true conservative.
Jindal said it is “silly to argue policy” with Trump because “he has no idea what he’s talking about, he makes it all up on the fly.”
He also attacked Trump’s character, calling him a “narcissist,” “egomaniacal,” “shallow,” and said Trump “lacks the intellectual curiosity to even learn.”
The attacks are not the first Jindal has leveled at Trump and the Louisianan has repeatedly tried to jump on Trump and other big stories du jour in a gambit to grab headlines and bolster his standing in the polls.
That strategy so fall has fallen short, with Jindal cracking just 1% of support in the latest CNN/ORC poll released Thursday — a percentage that puts him in the bottom tier of the 17-candidate pack of GOP contenders, alongside Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, and just above former Govs. Jim Gilmore, George Pataki and Rick Perry.
That standing will all-but-certainly not give Jindal a chance to stand on the same stage as Trump next week during the second GOP debate on CNN as Jindal will be relegated an earlier debate of lower-tier candidates.
“Just because people like watching Kim Kardashian, we wouldn’t put her in the White House either,” Jindal quipped.