Donald Trump goes after Ted Cruz's father, linking him to JFK's assassin
Donald Trump took several swings Tuesday morning at Sen. Ted Cruz’s father, Rafael Cruz — even linking him to President John F. Kennedy’s assassin.
Speaking by telephone with “Fox and Friends” on Tuesday, Trump took issue with Cruz’s father’s recent suggestion to an audience of Christian voters in Indiana that a presidency by Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, “could be the destruction of America.”
“I think it’s a disgrace that he’s allowed to do it,” Trump said. “I think that it’s a disgrace that he’s allowed to say it.”
He continued: “It’s disgraceful that his father can go out there and do that, and so many people are angry.”
Trump also pushed back against the elder Cruz’s pitch to evangelical voters in which he pointed out high-profile endorsements from figures like Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr.
During Tuesday’s interview, Trump also sought to undermine Rafael Cruz’s legitimacy by parroting a dubious National Enquirer story. The story claimed Rafael Cruz was photographed in the early 1960s handing out pro-Fidel Castro leaflets with President John F. Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald.
(Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Donald Trump.
The Enquirer has established a reputation for sensational stories that occasionally make their way into the political mainstream, such as when it broke the story of the John Edwards affair. The publication has endorsed Trump in this election cycle while publishing a series of suspect stories critical of the Texas senator, including one that Cruz accused of being fomented by Trump’s “henchmen.”
The Cruz campaign has called the National Enquirer story involving Rafael Cruz “garbage.”
Trump’s comments came the day of the Indiana primary, in which he is looking to score a knockout blow against Cruz. Though Cruz has campaigned hard in the Hoosier State, most recent polls show Trump with a significant lead.
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