Trump goes after Cruz on Ethanol in Iowa

Another poll shows Ted Cruz leading Donald Trump in Iowa.

“He’s got to come a long way because he’s right now for the oil”, Trump said.

“Everything I say he agrees with me, no matter what I say”, Trump said, picking up on television ads from the ethanol lobby attacking Cruz for opposing the industry’s favorite subsidy, the Renewable Fuel Standard. Cruz is casting himself as an insurgent insider looking to take down what he calls the “Washington cartel” from within. “And by the way, I do like Ted Cruz, but not a lot of evangelicals come out of Cuba in all fairness”.

But even before Friday’s hits, Cruz’s campaign was preparing for the possibility that Trump would pounce if Cruz started to seriously threaten his front-runner status.

Trump told Tapper that voters should pick him over Cruz because he’s “more capable” to lead the country and that he gets along with people “much better” than Cruz. “If I’m two votes short, I have a problem”.

Trump’s comments about Cruz’s religion were somewhat similar to what he said about presidential rival Ben Carson’s own Seventh-day Adventist faith earlier this year, when Carson was challenging Trump in Iowa polls.

Trump has often derided the Des Moines Register, Iowa’s largest newspaper, as biased against him. Trump posted on his twitter account “He will fall like all others, Will be easy!” Cruz takes the mantle on security with 30 percent and Trump gets 20 percent.

Brian Walsh, a longtime Senate campaign aide, said it’s an out-of-control Trump – not an in-control Cruz – that explains the Texan’s growing appeal. “Having a strong temperament is good”, he told CNN when asked about reported comments by House speaker Paul Ryan claiming his anti-Muslim rhetoric could “ruin the party”.

Cruz has drafted close to Trump in hopes of inheriting supporters should the real estate mogul drop out of the race or plummet in the polls.

Trump’s remarks, though not as harsh as he has been on other rivals, capped a day in which his relationship with Cruz appeared more fraught than ever. This time, she’s planning on coming out for Trump. Trump made a a big prediction: if he wins it in Iowa, “we’re gonna win everything after that”. Thirty-two percent say that candidate is Trump. And he panned Obama’s response to recent attacks in Paris, Mali and San Bernadino, California.

Homegrown jihadists pose a greater threat to the US, 50 percent of Republicans say, while 25 percent most fear terrorists among Syrian refugees and 17 percent most fear radicalized foreign visitors. Next week, he plans to tour through Nevada, Minnesota, Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas and Oklahoma, states that vote on March 1 in an effort to gain support before attention turns to contests in Iowa and New Hampshire.