The tail end of Ted Cruz’s stump speech Monday was half preacher’s pulpit, half standup comedy hour.
Ending his stump speech here at the Jackson County Fairgrounds, Cruz, as always, encouraged Iowans to pray and cited his dose of Scripture — 2 Chronicles 7:14.
“We are standing on the promises of Second Chronicles, 7:14,” he said in the eastern Iowa town, before an untimely interruption.
“Two Corinthians!” a man shouted from the third row.
During a highly-anticipated speech at the Christian school Liberty University last week, Cruz’s close Iowa rival, Donald Trump, was widely mocked for referring to a New Testament book as “Two Corinthians,” rather than “Second Corinthians,” as it is commonly known.
Trump and Cruz have courted Iowa’s evangelicals and in the caucus homestretch their campaigns have suggested that the other candidate is not an authentic believer.
Cruz, who frequently shows voters how well-versed he is in pop culture from the 1980’s and 90’s, then broke into another trademark accent — this time mimicking an old commercial for Chrysler.
“Two Corinthians walk into a bar — Ah, yes, Ricardo Montalban — genuine Corinthian leather!” Cruz, 45, said, referring to the actor who was the car’s pitchman before acknowledging he was dating himself. “You have to be a certain generation to remember that commercial.”
CNN’s Betsy Klein contributed to this report