Republican feud escalates; SC Gov. Haley backs Rubio

The Texas senator reiterated his response to Trump’s threat to sue him over a Cruz campaign ad that framed him as supporting pro-choice judicial nominees as president.

Cruz said Trump sent his campaign a “cease and desist letter” demanding it drop the ad. At the CNN town hall, he said he laughed out loud when he got the letter threatening what he called a “frivolous lawsuit”.

“But if Donald Trump files the lawsuit that he threatens, that lawsuit will be frivolous”, Cruz said.

“These ads and statements made by Cruz are clearly desperate moves by a guy who is tanking in the polls – watching his campaign go up in flames finally explains Cruz’s logo”, Mr Trump said in a statement, referring to the flame icon that appears on Mr Cruz’s website and elsewhere.

The letter, dated Tuesday from Trump attorney Jeffrey Goldman, threatens legal action over Cruz’s ad that shows a 1999 clip of Trump claiming he would not ban partial-birth abortions, the campaign said.

After earning a reprieve with a fourth-place finish in New Hampshire ahead of Rubio, Bush is raising expectations in SC that, if current polling showing him well behind Trump, Rubio and Cruz bears out, he will not meet.

“Mr. Trump’s implausible claim that he is pro-life doesn’t meet a reality test”, said Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler. He added, “Donald Trump does not want to be under oath answering questions about his own record”. Along with plenty of hosannas about Nikki Haley’s influence, of course. He’s used the spot – as well as the Cruz campaign’s involvement in spreading rumors before the Iowa caucuses that rival Ben Carson was dropping out of the race – to trash the Texas senator as “the most dishonest man I’ve ever met in politics”.

The results contrasted with those of a national poll conducted this week by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal that showed Trump dropping into a national dead heat with Cruz in the race for the Republican nomination for the November 8 election to succeed Democratic President Barack Obama. Trump now says he opposes abortion.

Trump has repeatedly bashed the Cruz ad in recent days, saying he has evolved on the issues and is now against abortion rights. Carson said people anxious about government access to their data should “get over it” for the sake of national security, and Rubio said the government and technology companies must work together to find a solution that protects data while allowing law enforcement to access it. Cruz said Apple should create the “back door” for the government to access the data in specific cases of criminal investigations.

Cruz spoke with reporters for more than a half-hour at a hotel in Seneca, S.C., laying out an indictment of Trump and even blaming him for passage of Obamacare, based on his campaign donations to Democrats. “They were only there to see W. So, really Jeb Bush just does not have the gifts that his brother has and it makes it easy to see, when you see George W. Bush talking, why he was able to win the White House twice and a lot of voters just don’t see those same qualities in Jeb”.

An ad aired in which Trump said, “I think Bush is probably the worst President in the history of the United States”.

“I think the campaign has been co-opted by the P.T. Barnum of our time”, he said.

Cruz (briefly) channeled Stevie Wonder: “I just called to say I love you, I just called to say I care”.

Cruz denied being involved with anything untoward and called for anyone with evidence to step forward. He also announced plans to run the contested ad more frequently.

Rubio and Cruz, who have been in a dead heat in some SC polls, rebuked each other for calling the other a liar. Trump will take the CNN stage Thursday night for the second part of the event. “For that particular endeavor, I may well not use outside counsel – I may take the deposition myself”, Cruz said. Cruz, however, is dominating with those who consider themselves to be very conservative and members of the Tea Party.