--- title: Donald Trump and Marco Rubio's Best Schoolyard Insults description: From spray tans to profuse sweating, here are the nastiest schoolyard insults being thrown between Trump and Rubio. canonical: https://time.com/4242827/donald-trump-marco-rubio-insults/ author: Tessa Berenson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-03-01T17:33:38.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-19T07:46:28.268Z article:section: Politics og:title: Here Are Trump and Rubio's Best Schoolyard Insults og:description: From small hands to sweating. og:url: https://time.com/4242827/donald-trump-marco-rubio-insults/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcfad4d3b769b001c/69887f3e2dce01f4b49e7f8f/gop-republican-debate-donald-trump-marco-rubio.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3500 og:image:height: 1969 og:image:alt: TIMEPOL Marco Rubio, Donald Trump og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Here Are Trump and Rubio's Best Schoolyard Insults twitter:description: From small hands to sweating. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcfad4d3b769b001c/69887f3e2dce01f4b49e7f8f/gop-republican-debate-donald-trump-marco-rubio.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Here Are Trump and Rubio's Best Schoolyard Insults > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Mar 1, 2016 5:33 PM UTC  Republican presidential candidates Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and businessman Donald Trump participate in a GOP debate in Houston on Feb. 25, 2016. Republican presidential candidates Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and businessman Donald Trump participate in a GOP debate in Houston on Feb. 25, 2016.Mike Stone—Reuters  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Mar 1, 2016 5:33 PM UTC Donald Trump has made a campaign of insult comedy from the beginning; calling people “losers” and “haters” is almost as much a part of his brand as his towers and golf resorts. But lately as the Republican field has winnowed and the race has intensified, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio [has a new plan](http://time.com/4240842/rubio-trump-attack-gop-republican/): stoop to conquer. Try to bully the bully. From spray tans to profuse sweating, here are the nastiest schoolyard insults being tossed between the two men: **On shvitzing** **Trump:** “I have never seen a human being sweat like this man sweats. … It looked like he had just jumped into a swimming pool with his clothes on.” (Trump then [splashed water onstage](http://time.com/4239357/donald-trump-marco-rubio-water-bottle-texas/) yelling, “It’s Rubio!”) **Rubio:** “He was having a meltdown. First he had this little makeup thing, applying like makeup around his mustache because he had one of those sweat mustaches.” **On height** **Trump:** “Little Marco Rubio is just another Washington D.C. politician that is all talk and no action #RobotRubio” (via [Twitter](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/704014599708876800)) **Rubio:** “He’s always calling me Little Marco. And I’ll admit he’s taller than me. He’s like 6’2″, which is why I don’t understand why his hands are the size of someone who is 5’2″. Have you seen his hands? They’re like this. And you know what they say about men with small hands? You can’t trust them.” **On faces** **Trump:** “He has really large ears, the biggest ears I’ve ever seen.” **Rubio:** “Donald is not going to make America great, he’s going to make America orange.” **On education** **Trump:** “The Rubios of the world could not get into that school \[Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania, which Trump attended\]. Oy. They don’t have the capacity.” **Rubio:** “How does this guy, not one tweet, but three tweets, misspell words so badly? And I only come to two conclusions. Number one, that’s how they spell those words at the Wharton School of Business, where he went, and number two, just like Trump Tower, he must have hired a foreign worker to do his own tweets.” **On everything else** **Rubio on Trump’s debate nerves:** “He wanted a full-length mirror. Maybe to make sure his pants weren’t wet.” **Rubio on Trump’s signature hairdo:** “He’s flying around on Hair Force One.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4242827/donald-trump-marco-rubio-insults/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4242827/donald-trump-marco-rubio-insults/"},"headline":"Here Are Trump and Rubio's Best Schoolyard Insults","datePublished":"2016-03-01T17:33:38.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-19T07:46:28.268Z","description":"From spray tans to profuse sweating, here are the nastiest schoolyard insults being thrown between Trump and Rubio.","url":"https://time.com/4242827/donald-trump-marco-rubio-insults/","keywords":["2016 Election","2016 Election","Sen. 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