'Really smart person' Donald Trump's presidential campaign is going from bad to worse/strength to strength

Everyone's least/most favourite billionaire Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, has held another inflammatory campaign event where illegal immigrants and Mexican politicians drew most of his and his screaming supporters' ire.

At a hotel in Phoenix, Arizona, around 5,000 people waited hours to hear Trump deliver an hour-long, rambling speech that touched on everything from Isis building hotels in Iraq to trade wars with China, and the evils of the press ("they're terrible people") to his own massive intellect ("I'm, like, a really smart person").

But as has been the case since he announced his perennial candidacy last month, the former figurehead of The Celebrity Apprentice couldn't help but return to the issue of undocumented migrants.

The accepted wisdom among Republicans is that to have any hope of being elected to the highest office, the party has to win back support among Hispanics, but Trump began his campaign by describing Mexican immigrants to the US as drug-users and rapists.

Yesterday's speech was briefly interrupted by people unfurling a banner reading "stop the hate", before they were grabbed at by Trump supporters - who later chanted "USA, USA" - and led away by security.

He later added: "This has become a movement. The silent majority is back, and we're going to take our country back ... the word is getting out that we have to stop illegal immigration."

Trump said Mexico's political leaders were "cunning".

Their leaders are much smarter than our leaders. They kill us at the border - people flow through like water - and they send people through they don't want.

The Guardianwas at the event and spoke to Elizabeth Shoemaker, an elderly woman wearing a cowboy hat and holding a "Trump = Truth" placard. She said of Trump: "He's telling it like it is. He's an American hero."

Oh, by the way, Trump and Jeb Bush, two of the 14 people running for the Republican nomination, are currently in a near-dead heat at the top of the polls. Really.

More: Donald Trump offered chance to apologise over 'Mexican rapists', instead decides to dig increasingly big hole

Quiz: Real Donald Trump policy or policy of our warped imaginations?