2016 Presidential Race: Rick Perry Slams Donald Trump Over Immigration, John McCain Comments

Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry delivered a speech blasting Donald Trump for his recent inflammatory remarks about immigrants and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., on Wednesday.

The billionaire real estate mogul received major backlash since he called Mexican immigrants drug traffickers and rapists during his presidential election announcement speech on June 16. In addition, the he recently undercut McCain's creditability as a prisoner of war despite the fact that the Arizona senator was held and tortured for more than five years in North Vietnam while fighting in the Vietnam War.

Trump stated that McCain is "not a war hero," reports Time. He then doubled down on his controversial comments remarks by criticizing the 78-year-old military veteran's record on helping other vets in an op-ed published on USA Today.

During a speech at an Opportunity and Freedom PAC event in Washington, D.C., the former Texas governor called the real estate tycoon's entire campaign "a cancer on conservatism" that "must be clearly diagnosed, excised and discarded" before it destroys the Republican Party, reports RealClearPolitics.

Perry also lambasted Trump as "a toxic mix of demagoguery, mean-spiritedness and nonsense that will lead the Republican Party to perdition if pursued."

"I, for one, will not be silent when a candidate for the high office of president runs under the Republican banner by targeting millions of Hispanics, and our veterans, with mean-spirited vitriol," Perry said.

The former Texas governor stated that although Trump "has piqued the interest of some Republican voters who have legitimate concerns about a porous border and broken immigration system," he is not "offering those voters leadership or solutions," but rather "fear and sound bites."

Perry also said that Trump "couldn't have endured for five minutes what John McCain endured for five and a half years."

Before Perry's speech, Trump tweeted and Instagramed out a photo of himself standing with the former Republican governor in Trump's Manhattan office.

"@GovernorPerry in my office last cycle playing nice and begging for my support and money. Hypocrite!" wrote Trump.