U.S. Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump ramped up his attacks on Ted Cruz Saturday, intimating the loans the Texas senator received for his 2012 Senate race may have influenced his stance on bank regulation.
Advertisement
When pressed on his 1999 interview with NBC, Trump pivoted instead to bash Cruz as a “hypocrite” over taking money from New Yorkers. “Nobody likes him. Nobody in Congress likes him”. He doesn’t hit anybody, he says, until they take a swing at him first. Wow, that sounds like a very good case. “Literally they were there when other buildings in the surrounding area they thought were going to fall and you had people working trying to help, the most horrific sites you’ve ever seen, trying to help do whatever they could”.
That’s a far cry from what Trump said scarcely four months ago when he and Cruz made a joint appearance at a DC rally against the Iran nuclear deal.
Donald Trump and Ted Cruz escalated their rhetorical battle Saturday, going after each other over loans, citizenship, polls and “New York values” a little more than two weeks before the Republican nomination process opens with the Iowa caucuses.
Cruz’s attack on NY has drawn near-universal condemnation from city and state leaders, with Mayor de Blasio and Gov. Cuomo leading the charge against him.
Cruz declined to comment on the Times report when asked by a CNN reporter during an appearance in Columbia, South Carolina on Friday.
Cruz had mentioned that the rest of the country is aware of the values that New Yorkers have, yet those who are from NY may not be aware of what values they have all been characterized to have.
“If Ted Cruz is so opposed to gay marriage, why did he accept money from people who espouse gay marriage?” he asked.
Cruz went on to respond to a serious of critical tweets earlier Saturday morning from Trump by questioning his judgment and temperament to be president. Days later, as the nation’s first nominating contests draw nearer, the debate over the metropolitan area and its “values” continues to snowball, with Cruz doubling down on the line of attack. “Especially when you will have two candidates who have been very strong”.
“I think (Rubio) is electable”. That time he mocked a disabled reporter?
‘I’m from Manhattan, those are the views of New York, those are what New York values are, they are not Iowa values, but they’re New York values, ‘ Cruz continued. “In South Carolina, when I was there, the people there certainly understand it”, Mr. Cruz said.
“You give a campaign contribution to Ted Cruz, you get whatever the hell you want”, he said, the boos beginning.
Deb Kadar-Hull, a Trump supporter, said she didn’t like what Cruz said about NY at the debate.
Trump, who needs a victory in Iowa to set a winning tone to his campaign, kept up his attempt to undermine Cruz’s attempt to portray himself as an outsider to the political establishment.
Advertisement
“When the World Trade Center came down”, he said, “I saw something that no place on Earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely than NY”.
