Trump in his own words: Highlights of a 95-minute rant

Donald Trump delivered a 95-minute rant in Fort Dodge Thursday night that was scathing, even by his standards.

Trump's speech was a slow crescendo, starting with criticism of Bowe Bergdahl, before moving to "our so-called allies" in the Middle East and finally peaking with an extended invective on Ben Carson's personal history.

Here's a look at some of the businessman's sharpest lines, most bizarre criticisms and his short-but-sweet ode to Iowa farm life.

Ben Carson

"He said that he’s pathological and that he’s got a basically pathological disease. … I said that if you’re a child molester, a sick puppy, you’re a child molester, there’s no cure for that. There’s only one cure, and we don’t want to talk about that cure. That’s the ultimate cure. No. There’s two. There’s death and the other thing. But if you’re a child molester, there’s no cure. They can’t stop you. Pathological, there’s no cure."

MORE: Trump to Iowans: Don't fall for Carson's 'crap'

Hillary Clinton

"And she’s playing the woman card up. That’s all she has. Honestly, outside of the woman’s card, she’s got nothing going. Believe me. She’s playing the woman’s card bigly, and I know so many women who’ve said I wouldn’t vote for her. If you gave me a million dollars I wouldn’t vote for her."

Marco Rubio

"Nice person. Weak on illegal immigration. You know that. Weak Rubio. Ready? Weak on illegal immigration. Like, weak like a baby. Like a baby. Not a good poker player. Because every time he’s under pressure he starts to just profusely sweat. If he was playing poker with me, I’d say ah! I know what, the water would start pouring off his body. I’d say ahhhh. Oh boy, he’d have a hard time. We need a poker player. A great one, OK? We need a great one."

Carly Fiorina

"I’m telling Carly whatever-the-hell-her-name is Fiorina, I’m saying, 'will you stop cutting in?' No, everybody that talks, she cuts in, cuts in. You know, I’m raising my hand. I’m trying to be a gentleman."

'I would bomb the s--- out of them.'

"I know more about ISIS than the generals do. Believe me. ... I would bomb the s--- out of ‘em. … I’d blow up the pipes. I’d blow up the — I’d blow up every single inch. There would be nothing left. And you know what, you get Exxon to come in there and in two months — you ever see these guys how good they are? The great oil companies? They’ll rebuild that sucker brand new. It’ll be beautiful. And I’d bring it, and I’d take the oil."

On buying a farm in Iowa

"I love Iowa. I’ve been here so many times now. I think I’m gonna buy a farm and maybe just move here. I like it. I love it."

Bowe Bergdahl

"I see Sgt. Bergdahl, a traitor. A no-good, dirty, rotten traitor. … So we knew he was a traitor and we made the deal anyway. I wouldn’t have made the deal. I would have said, 'Oh he’s a traitor? That’s OK, they can have him for the rest of his life.' … Frankly, they’re so brutal, that’s not a good life. See, it turned out to be a little tougher than he thought. He thought he’d go over there, 'Hey babe, how you doing? How you guys doing?' Boom boom boom! They’d beat the crap out of him. Which is fine. That’s fine. I’m happy about that."

'Our so-called allies'

"We make equipment, we give it to our so-called allies, who we don’t even know who the hell they are. Once shots fired, they all run and ISIS takes our beautiful brand new Humvees, armor plated. And our kids — it’s true — And our kids are riding around in crap, and they have brand new armor plated stuff. 2,300 Humvees sent over. A couple of shots are fired and these guys run like a bunch of thieves, which they are. Our allies. Our allies. And ISIS picks up the weapons, the Humvees, the this. It’s just incredible."

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John Kasich

"Kasich! Oh, I had a headache from this guy. In fact, I actually said, 'Let Jeb Bush talk!' And Jeb didn’t know whether to thank me or not. He goes, 'Thank you, I think.' He wasn’t sure. But I was being serious! Let him talk! Kasich, the guy’s bugging — oh, he’s terrible. And he had a bad debate. Because he looked angry. And angry’s OK in the right place. But you have people that I didn’t think he did very well."

Jeb Bush

"Now Bush I’ve said he’s a low-energy individual. … But we don’t have to talk about Bush. Because it looks like he’s out."

"Why do these people stay? George Pataki. He’s got nothing. He was a terrible governor of New York. He couldn’t have been elected dog catcher. He decided not — he couldn’t have been — if he ran for dog catcher he wouldn’t have — and he runs for — he’s running for president again and again! Then he didn’t even make the child’s stage two days ago! And I hear he’s still not quitting! He’s got zero chance."George Pataki

Lindsey Graham

"And you have others. I don’t want to insult them. Is it OK if I don’t insult them? Lindsey Graham. No Lindsey Graham, he’s a senator from South Carolina.

"He talks like a tough guy. You know the tough guys don’t talk like tough guys. You need smarts. ... Then they say 'Ohhh, Lindsey Graham, he knows so much about the military.' Look where we are, folks! ... This is the one, he gave me his phone number because he wanted me to make a campaign contribution years ago. And I made this speech. I said, I wonder if this number still works, right? Because he started mocking me. He was perfectly nice then all of a sudden he realized he was going nowhere. He’s in the dog house in the polls. And all of a sudden I was a bad guy. So I said let’s call him, folks. And they started calling. It was actually quite funny."

Predicting 9/11

"I wrote a book, 'The America We Deserve,' where I said in 2000, before the World Trade Center came down, where I said there's a guy named Osama bin Laden — in my book! — in my book. And we better watch him. ... Two weeks ago I’m watching Joe Scarborough, Morning Joe — good show, I don’t know if anybody knows, but it’s a good show, right? ... And they had the book, and they said Trump actually predicted Osama bin Laden would come in and do something very bad. World Trade Center. And he said 'Yeah, but when did he write it?' And they looked and said 2000. Whoa! That’s unbelievable! He said that before — he’s the only one that predicted it! And I wasn’t even in government. I wasn’t even in government. And I predicted — now, who knew this was going to happen. But I would have taken that guy out just based on his threats. Just based on his threats. We’ve got to know where to fight and when to fight. You know we have stupid people. We have very very stupid people running our country."

Not nice enough

"My weakness is that people don’t know if I’m a nice person. Who the hell cares? We’ve got to straighten out our country."

On being told he can’t run for president

"I’ve always heard this, when you’re a very successful person — successful even! — but if you’re really successful, I’ve always heard from the time I’m a little boy, you cannot run for president. You can’t. I never understood."

Ted Cruz

"Cruz, it’s hard for me to say anything bad about Cruz because he says such good things about me. He’s always saying I’m amazing. So I’ll save that for when he gets nasty because I mean at some point he’s going to have to get nasty. Right? But he’s been very nice to me… So then we can do what I like to do best."

On being a not-perfect Christian

"Say what you want about Christianity, as a group we haven’t done a good job in protecting our religion. We really haven’t. We’ve let government take it away. We’ve let government take it away. Pastor (Robert) Jeffress is a real nice guy. You know Pastor Jeffress. He’s on television the other night and they’re asking him about Trump. He said yes he’s a Christian, and he’s a good guy, he’s a good — he’s not your typical Christian. But you know sometimes we sort of do a little sacrifice because he’s an unbelievable leader and he’s really smart and he’s going to protect us. And maybe that’s better than having a perfect Christian that doesn’t have leadership ability. Which is, you know, can happen. That doesn’t have certain other qualities. Because we need somebody hat’s going to be a leader and protect us now."

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“If I were Abraham Lincoln…”

"If I were Abraham Lincoln, who’s a great orator, actually. They say. Who the hell knows. I mean, I didn’t get to watch him. But Abraham Lincoln, if I were Abraham Lincoln and I gave the greatest remarks you’ve ever heard — how about the Gettysburg Address? You know, I’ll do something like that. No good (in the eyes of the press). It wouldn’t be good. Nope, not good. Didn’t do a good job. Oh. Good. If my name was Trump. If my name was Honest Abe it’s the greatest thing he’s ever heard. So you know, you have that."