Ted Cruz implored a Tea Party audience here on Saturday to examine closely the record of candidates like Donald Trump and Marco Rubio, warning a crowd not to get “burned” by fake brothers in arms even as he declined to utter his rivals’ names.
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While avoiding the topic of Trump during his speech at the Tea Party convention, Cruz said he is the most committed conservative in the Republican race. Nobody likes him. Nobody in Congress likes him. It just goes to show it doesn’t really matter if you’re black or white; if you’re citizenship is questioned, people will bandwagon for the chance to get rid of someone they don’t deem American enough. He’s got an edge that’s not good. “You’re not. … It’s not as simple as some of the people make it sound”. “You want to be President of the United States, you have to unite this country”. Cruz has responded by questioning Trump’s “New York values” – a coded suggestion that Trump is too liberal to be a Republican. Cruz said those values – pro-abortion rights, including supporting partial birth abortion and pro-gay marriage – explained Trump’s world view. “So, you know, my views are a little different than if I lived in Iowa-perhaps”.
Trump on Sunday called Cruz a “nasty guy” whom no one likes.
But Trump, he went on to say, was “nowhere to be found” during the battle over the 2013 Gang of Eight immigration reform bill.
The escalating war of words between Trump and Cruz reflects polls in Iowa showing the two candidates running neck-and-neck in the first caucus of the 2016 cycle. “There’s no reason any New Yorker should be helping him with money so he can attack us”.
Cruz may try to tone that message down for New Hampshire’s generally more secular residents, but some of the state’s Christians say they hope Cruz’s message of faith will inspire voters. Trump also pounced on a New York Times report late last week that Cruz had failed to report to the Federal Election Commission two personal loans from Goldman Sachs and Citibank totaling almost $1 million that he used to help finance his long-shot 2012 Senate campaign. They’re number one and two.
Jeb Bush was thought to be the favorite for the nomination when Trump entered the crowded Republican field last June.
“I apologize to all the pro-life and pro-marriage and pro-second amendment New Yorkers who were told by Governor Cuomo that they have no place in NY because that’s not who New Yorkers are”.
The comments come on the heels of Thursday’s Republican debate in which Cruz and Trump verbally sparred over several issues.
So Trump says Cruz is a good guy and then Trump says Cruz is a nasty guy.
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Ben Shapiro is Senior Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News, Editor-in-Chief of DailyWire.com, and The New York Times bestselling author, most recently, of the book, The People vs. Barack Obama: The Criminal Case Against The Obama Administration (Threshold Editions, June 10, 2014).
