Donald Trump, who sparked criticism for using a vulgar term to describe Texas Sen. Ted Cruz on Monday, defended the incident in interviews on Tuesday, as New Hampshire voters took to the polls for the first-in-the-nation primary.
“Can I tell you what? The audience went crazy, standing ovation, 5,000 people went nuts,” Trump said on Fox News. “They loved it.”
A woman in the audience at Trump’s Monday rally in Manchester, N.H., responded to Cruz’s stance on waterboarding, yelling “He’s a pussy!”
The Republican presidential candidate repeated the phrase.
“You’re not allowed to say, and I never expect to hear that from you again,” Trump said. “She said he’s a pussy.”
Read more: Donald Trump’s Son Compares Waterboarding to Frat Parties
While Trump has said he wants to bring back the practice of waterboarding, Cruz has said he “would not bring it back in any sort of widespread use.”
“It was like a retweet,” Trump said on Tuesday. “I would never say a word like that.”
As he has throughout his campaign, Trump emphasized that he won’t subscribe to political correctness, and he chalked the incident up to having a little fun.
“We were all just having fun,” Trump said on MSNBC. “It was a great moment.”
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Write to Katie Reilly at Katie.Reilly@time.com