Ted Cruz tries to downplay comments questioning Donald Trump’s ‘judgment,’ but

A prominent Iowa evangelical leader has endorsed Ted Cruz for president, a coup for the Texas senator, who has heavily courted churches and pastors in an effort to win the state’s leadoff Republican caucuses.

Asked if he would support Trump if he becomes the GOP nominee, Cruz said, “I will absolutely support the Republican nominee…but I hope and intend for that nominee to be me”.

“Well look he’s from Texas – to the best of my knowledge, there’s a lot of oil in Texas, right? But really, with the ethanol, he’s got to come a long way, because he’s right now for the oil”.

The gloves are finally off between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, even if Cruz would rather have kept them on.

Support for Cruz has been climbing, according to several recent polls. Trump has famously turned on other GOP candidates who have criticized him. “I think Cruz not attacking Trump has to do with the fact that he knows Trump has a ceiling, he thinks he is not going to last and Cruz wants to be there to pick up the pieces, it’s very calculated”.

“But I’m with you”, he added. “I have no special interest”.

Arthur Sanders, a political science professor at Drake University in Des Moines Iowa, says Cruz has been running his campaign at a marathon pace and it’s paying off.

“Yes it is”, Trump replied.

Trump was responding to a report in The New York Times the day before that quoted Cruz suggesting that voters would start to question the foreign-policy judgment of both Trump and another GOP candidate, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson.

In a tweet earlier on Friday, Trump challenged Cruz to unveil those concerns publicly, but Cruz has not yet done so.

The attacks came after The New York Times reported that Cruz had questioned Trump’s judgment at a closed-door fundraiser, straining the rare detente between two of the race’s most outspoken candidates.

Trump previewed his attack lines on Twitter Friday morning.

But for the next 50 days, Cruz and Trump appear to be barreling toward a tough fight for first place in the Hawkeye State.

“My approach – much to the frustration of the media – has been to bear-hug both of them and smother them with love”, Cruz said of Trump and Carson in the leaked audio.

“What the hell is Monmouth?”