Trump slammed Rove for an ad released by his super PAC, Crossroads GPS, targeting potential Kentucky senate candidate Ashley Judd and argued that the ad itself turned Judd into a serious candidate.

“All of a sudden, she became this phoenix,” Trump marveled. He remarked of the ad, “I’ve never seen her look more beautiful. By the time that commercial ended, everybody said ‘Wow, she’s really a hot candidate, she’s great.’ What a stupid commercial. This is the same mind that spent $400 million and didn’t win a race.”

Trump also said that he will not challenge former representative Anthony Weiner in a New York City mayoral contest, should Weiner decide to run, and dismissed the idea that the disgraced congressman would succeed in mounting a successful return to political life. “The guy is a whack-job pervert,” Trump said. “I can’t believe that Anthony Weiner has a future in politics. The guy is a sick pervert and we need good people.”

On the issue of immigration, Trump repeatedly warned the GOP of the perils posed by offering illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship. “I don’t care if, whoever it may be — you could say Marco Rubio, you could say Rand Paul, you could say whoever it is, if they want to lead the charge to get [illegal immigrants] citizenship and voting rights, they won’t get one vote.” 

The party’s embrace of such a policy would be a “suicide mission,” Trump said in his main speech earlier. “11 million people will be voting Democratic.”

Reforming and reviving the Republican party, Trump said, will be far more challenging than getting the economy back on track, but he emphasized that “all it takes is one person.” He cautioned that the 2016 presidential election will be even more difficult for Republicans than the 2012 race, saying that last year’s loss was a “tremendous negative to the Republican party.”