President-elect Donald Trump mocked one of his formal presidential rivals at his Friday night rally in Orlando, Florida, calling Evan McMullin “McMuffin.” While recalling watching the polls close on election night, Trump referred to the investment banker as a “character that nobody ever saw before, nobody ever heard of him before."
When someone in the audience called the former independent candidate “McMuffin,” Trump repeated it.
"That’s correct, that’s his name, he said Evan McMuffin, do you believe this?” Trump said, according to the Hill. “I never heard of this guy before. Nobody did. And the polls said he’s even with Donald Trump. My wife said, she looked at the television and she said he’s not even with you. Believe me, he’s not even.”
McMullin took to his Twitter account to respond to Trump.
This is not the first time that people have heard McMullin being called "McMuffin." The former CIA operations officer himself mentioned the nickname during the election. Days before Nov. 8, the candidate posted a photo from McDonald's posing with two Egg McMuffins.
Trump attacked McMullin on several occasions previously, referring to him only as "some guy" and a challenger from Utah.
"I don’t think a Republican has ever lost. Have they ever lost Utah? I don’t think so. Utah is in play. Against some guy, that I look at him and say, ‘There’s no way’,” Trump reportedly said at a “thank you” tour rally earlier this month.
McMullin responded to Trump’s attacks, challenging him to use his name.
McMullin, who served as chief policy director for the House Republican Conference in the U.S. House of Representatives and a senior adviser on national security issues for the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, announced in August 2016 that he would run for president as an independent candidate, backed by the organization Better for America.
Giving his reason for running for president, the 40-year-old said he believes Trump was unfit for the office and he strongly opposed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's liberalism.
McMullin was out of the race after he came in third place in Utah, receiving 20.6 percent of the state's popular vote, behind both Trump and Clinton.