Donald Trump and Ted Cruz ripped into each other Saturday morning, with the brash billionaire tearing into Cruz’s Canadian birth and two undisclosed loans he reportedly made during his 2012 Senate run, while the Texas senator unloaded on Trump’s record, temperament and fitness to be commander in chief.
The salvos exchanged between the two men, who are both scheduled to appear at a tea party event in South Carolina later Saturday, marks another escalation between the two leading GOP candidates a little more than two weeks before the first votes are cast in Iowa.
Trump began the morning by slamming Cruz in a series of tweets.
“Ted Cruz was born in Canada and was a Canadian citizen until 15 months ago. Lawsuits have just been filed with more to follow. I told you so,” Trump tweeted, referring to a lawsuit filed by a Houston man challenging the eligibility of Cruz, who was born in Canada to an American mother, to be president.
Then Trump slammed Cruz on not disclosing a Goldman Sachs loan, writing, “Ted Cruz said he “didn’t know” that he was a Canadian Citizen. He also FORGOT to file his Goldman Sachs Million $ loan papers.Not believable”
Trump then referenced a loan Cruz received from Goldman Sachs during his 2012 Senate candidacy as well as a New York Times report from Friday that said Cruz failed to disclose a second loan from Citibank during his 2012 Senate run.
“Was there another loan that Ted Cruz FORGOT to file. Goldman Sachs owns him, he will do anything they demand. Not much of a reformer!”
Trump continued to hit Cruz over the matter in a handful of other tweets.
Cruz declined to comment on the Times report when asked by a CNN reporter during an appearance in Columbia, South Carolina on Friday. But speaking to reporters at a church not far from Charlotte on Saturday, Cruz, who once declined to attack Trump, shed any caution he may have had about laying into his top rival.
“I would note that Donald’s record does not match what he says as a candidate,” Cruz said, gamely tackling questions he routinely swatted away for seven months.
Cruz also aggressively ridiculed Trump’s obsession with the latest opinion surveys, saying that Trump’s attacks on Twitter come because he is “dismayed” about a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showing a competitive race.
“I imagine it pulled him out of bed this morning and send him tweeting and tweeting and tweeting,” he said. “I think in terms of a commander in chief, we ought to have someone who isn’t springing out of bed to tweet in a frantic response to the latest polls.”
Cruz referred repeatedly to an interview Trump did with NBC News’ Tim Russert 17 years ago, in which he defines his “New York values” as distinct from “Iowa values.” Cruz said those values — pro-abortion rights, including supporting partial birth abortion and pro-gay marriage — explained Trump’s world view. And he dredged up the former Democrat’s donation history to some of the state’s leading politicians, including Hillary Clinton.
“Given the fact that for much of his life, Donald was financially supporting those politicians — writing checks to Hillary Clinton, writing checks to Andrew Cuomo — it is a fair inference that he supports their policies,” Cruz said.
The Texas senator, then asked for some differences on national security between him and Trump, offered that was unaware of what Trump’s foreign policy is.
“To be honest, I don’t know what Donald’s position is,” Cruz said.
