Trump strikes back at Cruz as Bush lands key endorsement

(2) Ted Cruz: The Texas Senator dominated the opening portion of the evening, running circles around Trump on the “natural born citizen’ eligibility non-issue”. Later he went after Trump for having liberal “New York values”, only to find Trump reaching for the heart again.

His comments evoked a provocative, front-page response from the New York Daily News Friday telling Cruz to “go back to Canada”, a reference to the senator’s Canadian birth which Trump has raised as a potential barrier to his rival’s right to run for president.

Houston attorney Newton B. Schwartz, Sr. filed a complaint Thursday in U.S. District Court in Texas, asking for a declaratory judgment on whether Cruz can serve as president.

“I think most people know exactly what NY values are”, Cruz said. Which is why the partisans on Cruz control were duly titillated to hear their guy depict NY as an alien conclave with no connection to red-blooded America. Even as someone who’s been very critical and cynical about Trump, I believed him here. “I think we pride ourselves on being a place of diversity and equality”.

Perry said it remains to be seen whether the rest of the country will follow Utah’s lead and ultimately reject the billionaire businessman and reality TV star, who now has the support of more than a third of voters nationwide. Cruz was trying to discount Donald Trump’s alignment with the Republican Party. I may have thought Trump had an off night-his attempt to smear Ted Cruz with a “birther” theory was embarrassing-but his supporters are undaunted. “What we need to do is get a group of experts together, including people from other countries, some of our friends from Israel, who have had experience screening these people and come up with new guidelines for immigration, and for visas, for people who are coming into this country”, he said.

If Trump and Cruz dueled to a draw, Trump comes out ahead, as polls show him leading nationally by a wide margin and in a dead heat with Cruz in Iowa, which holds the crucial first nominating contest February 1.

“I’m always open to give him an education on what NY values are all about, and, if he had any class, he would apologize to the people of NY”.

BARTIROMO: I am from NY.

And the people in NY fought and fought and fought, and we saw more death, and even the smell of death – nobody understood it. And it was with us for months, the smell, the air. “Everybody in the world watched, and everyone in the world loved NY and loved New Yorkers”, Trump said. “It was right for Donald Trump to defend the city and the heroic actions of first responders”.

Not a lot of New Yorkers have given money to Cruz’s bid for the White House. “That was a very insulting statement that Ted made”. I’ll take his NY stereotype any day.