Donald Trump Denies Ever Linking Cruz’s Father To JFK Assassination
GOP nominee also says he didn't attack Heidi Cruz
The day after accepting the Republican nomination for president, Donald Trump denied he once disparaged Ted Cruz’s father and then repeated the insult, continuing his feud with the Texas senator two days after Cruz refused to endorse him .
At a post-convention press conference in Cleveland, the real estate mogul said he never promoted the idea that Rafael Cruz was with Lee Harvey Oswald right before he shot John F. Kennedy.
“I think he is a lovely guy,” Trump said of Cruz’s father. “All I did was point out the fact that on the cover of the National Enquirer, there was a picture of him and crazy Lee Harvey Oswald having breakfast. Now Ted never denied that it was his father.”
WATCH: Damning video undermines Trump momentum after accepting nomination → https://t.co/EMqM2lAdxE
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) July 22, 2016
A few weeks after the National Enquirer first published a photo showing Oswald with a man the publication said was Rafael Cruz, Trump cited the story and said no questions were being asked about it:
The fact-checking website Politifact ranked Trump’s claim that Rafael Cruz was with Oswald before the JFK assassination as “Pants on fire.”
Trump also denied attacking Cruz’s wife even though he has yet to delete a tweet comparing an unflattering picture of Heidi Cruz to his wife, Melania Trump.
“@Don_Vito_08: “A picture is worth a thousand words” @realDonaldTrump #LyingTed #NeverCruz @MELANIATRUMP pic.twitter.com/5bvVEwMVF8”
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 24, 2016
“Heidi … is a very nice woman and a beautiful woman,” Trump said Friday.
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GOP Civil War Gets More Uncivil
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Cruz urged delegates to “vote your conscience” during his speech Wednesday before the Republican National Convention, despite signing a pledge earlier in the year to support whomever the GOP nominated.
“I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father,” Cruz said the day after his convention speech . “And that pledge was not a blanket commitment that if you go and slander and attack Heidi that I’m going to nonetheless come like a servile puppy dog.”
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