Cruz escalates attacks on Trump over values, foreign policy

Now Cruz is surging, rising to around 18 percent in national polls, according to HuffPo, against Trump’s dominating 36 percent.

The poll, which was shared with Business Insider ahead of its release Tuesday, found a tight Republican race in Iowa, which will hold the nation’s first caucuses early next month.

With the phrase “natural-born citizen”, Trump paraphrases the constitutional requirements of those who are elected to America’s highest office (along with 14 years of residency and a minimum age of 35).

“Donald comes from NY and he embodies NY values”, Cruz said, adding that “The Donald seems to be a little bit rattled” over his position in the polls.

Trump and Cruz are in a dominant position compared to the rest of the field. Not if Cruz has his way.

“Does a potential commander-in-chief know what the nuclear triad is, much less, is he or she prepared and able to strengthen it and keep this country safe?”

A match up with Ted Cruz shows Sanders leading by five points, while Clinton trails by four.

In an abrupt strategy shift Tuesday, Texas Sen.

And he jabbed Trump on the billionaire’s cosmopolitan lifestyle. The call also asked the listener whether Trump’s charge against Cruz would affect their vote. Still, in recent weeks he had begun tacitly questioning both Trump’s ability and his electability.

And Trump resurrected his attacks against Cruz over his birthplace, seeking to raise more questions over Cruz’s eligibility for the White House.

Conservative talk radio host Mark Levin became irritated with Trump’s attacks against Cruz last week over the issue, saying that the New York Republican needs to lay off of Cruz.

What makes all of this more pathetic to watch is that the people co-opting Trump are being so timid about it. Paul, Carly Fiorina, and even Reince Priebus (who fears a Cruz nomination as much as do Cruz’s opponents) are playing a coy, “Golly gosh, we just don’t know if he’s eligible…” game. John McCain and Sen.

Citing Trump’s references to Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe, who has cast doubt on Cruz’s eligibility to be president, Cruz branded Tribe “a liberal left-wing judicial activist Harvard Law professor who is a huge Hillary supporter”. “She has been a partisan Democrat herself obviously and, uh, she and Donald know each other well and I do think it’s interesting that Hillary Clinton’s key supporters are doing everything they can to echo Donald’s attacks on me”. But Donald Trump maintains a strong lead in New Hampshire, so a candidate could finish second or third by winning over a relatively small segment of the state’s Republicans.

Cruz flatly denied ever having a Canadian passport, telling CNN this is just one of those “silly sideshows” the media love to engage in.