Rubio camp: Cruz sets tone in own campaign

The video in a hotel lobby show Rubio and a Cruz staffer holding a Bible talking with Rubio as the Florida senator allegedly suggested that there “not many answers” in the Bible.

“I’ve spent this morning investigating what happened, and this morning I asked for Rick Tyler’s resignation”, Cruz told reporters in Las Vegas, calling what Tyler did a “grave error of judgment”.

Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio received boosts Monday in his drive to become the mainstream Republican alternative to front-runner Donald Trump, with a string of high-profile endorsements and missteps by rival Ted Cruz’s campaign.

The erroneous story was originally published by student publication The Daily Pennsylvanian along with a video in which Rubio said “Got a good book there” to a Cruz staffer he spotted reading the Bible. “Ted Cruz has said if he’s elected President he’s going to turn over our national monuments to the state of Nevada, and I know my state – we don’t have the resources to properly manage them, and they’ll be sold off for private development and mining”. “Even if it was true, our campaign should not have sent it”.

Businessman Donald Trump lashed out at Cruz over Twitter on Monday, saying that Cruz “has now apologized to Marco Rubio and Ben Carson for fraud and dirty tricks”.

This whole episode is obviously bad for Cruz for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that he’s losing one of his top campaign officials.

On the way out of the news conference, Cruz denied reports that he had met or talked to Rubio since the incident. “And then I pointed to the Book of Proverbs, which he was reading; I said particularly that one, which is a book of wisdom”. The video in fact showed Rubio praising the Bible, but incorrectly captioned Rubio’s difficult-to-hear remarks as stating the opposite.

By quickly demanding Tyler’s resignation – a move so sudden that Tyler got word on a TV set where he’d meant to defend Cruz – a candidate who has followed a single narrative and strategy since Day One was trying to get it back.

Rubio narrowly beat Cruz for second place in the SC primary.

Strange. But the story may have ended there had the video, which was circulated on conservative news websites, not been shared by Rick Tyler, Cruz’s longtime campaign spokesman.

But Tyler’s retweet and posting on Facebook fed a developing meme that the Cruz campaign likes the low road.

Mr Cruz touted Mr Tyler’s exit as evidence that his was the only major campaign acting honourably in the rough-and-tumble race to the Republican nomination.

Time’s Zeke Miller revealed yesterday afternoon that Ted Cruz had asked his senior spokesperson to resign after he spread false rumors about Marco Rubio.

But the closeness of the contest certainly weighed on Cruz as he implored his supporters to motivate others to caucus for him.

On Sunday, Cruz’s campaign posted a video to its Facebook page that appeared to represent a major embarrassment for Rubio. “He got caught in so many lies – is this man insane?” Tyler posted a note of apology yesterday. In particular, Cruz faced criticism in Iowa for sending out a controversial “voter violation” mailer.

Speaking to reporters in Las Vegas earlier today, a visibly angry Rubio commented on Cruz’s latest hit.