Like I say, this was a cell phone number, not Graham’s Senate office number, which of course is public.

Must be a new tactic he’s trying out. If he was intent on doxxing every famous person who’s called him a jackass, as Graham did last night on CNN, he would have started selling maps to Jon Stewart’s house years ago.

“He doesn’t seem like a very bright guy. He actually probably seems to me not as bright as Rick Perry. I think Rick Perry probably is smarter than Lindsey Graham,” Trump added, riffing on prior insults he had lobbed at the former Texas governor.

Then Trump transitioned to an embarrassing anecdote, which the billionaire real estate developer said was from a few years ago, in which Graham called Trump “begging” him for a good reference with Trump’s pals on the Fox News morning program “Fox & Friends.”

Trump said that he promised Graham he would put out a good word, and the South Carolina Republican then gave him his phone number to follow up.

Trump then read out what he said was Graham’s phone number, telling his supporters to “try it.”

This made me laugh:

https://twitter.com/BenjySarlin/status/623551989541130240

Good point from Ace: The value of having Trump in the race, supposedly, is that he’s forcing the RINOs to address subjects they don’t want to address, like crimes committed by illegal immigrants . But he’s not doing that lately. There are endless opportunities for it — he could start talking about the Planned Parenthood nightmare or the threat to religious liberty from antidiscrimination laws — but he’d rather take potshots at McCain and Graham. I quoted this Peter Spiliakos post in an earlier thread about Trump but his key point bears repeating. “Trump’s rhetoric is about wounding people that his fans despise,” he said, not about forcing otherwise underserved issues onto the GOP’s 2016 policy plate. That’s the common thread between his comments about Mexican rapists, McCain, and now Graham.

On that note, I’ll try to predict the five camps of reaction to giving out Graham’s number:

1. The RINO had it coming/any weapon to hand, a.k.a. the Spiliakos theory: 80 percent
2. Not cool, but Obama’s done so much that’s so much worse: 10 percent
3. Not cool, but Graham started it by criticizing him: Five percent
4. Not cool, but also pretty funny and not a big deal given that it’s just a cell number and Graham can get a new one: Four percent
5. Not cool because, after all, we’d all be wetting our pants if Jeb Bush pulled this on Trump: One percent

We’ll see how I do. Exit quotation from today’s rally: “If you can’t get rich dealing with politicians, there’s something wrong with you.”