Growing feud: Donald Trump, Ted Cruz escalate attacks on each other

Cruz declined to comment on the Times report when asked by a CNN reporter during an appearance in Columbia, South Carolina on Friday.

Donald Trump and Ted Cruz escalated their rhetorical battle Saturday, going after each other over loans, citizenship, polls and “New York values” a little more than two weeks before the Republican nomination process opens with the Iowa caucuses.

Cruz is “the only one who’ll do what he says he’s going to do”, said Teri Sullivan, 61, a businesswoman from Aiken, while Trump will likely act like President Obama and start issuing executive orders. “Nobody in Congress likes him”. We feel very good.

“Being angry about the direction of our country by itself will not be enough”, Rubio said, referencing the conservative anger fueling Trump and Cruz’ candidacies.

“Given the fact that for much of his life, Donald was financially supporting those politicians – writing checks to Hillary Clinton, writing checks to Andrew Cuomo – it is a fair inference that he supports their policies”, Cruz said. Last year, the two presidential rivals appeared together at a campaign rally on Capitol Hill, sharing an embrace and heaping praise on each other.

“Often conservatives are just all over the place and they dissipate their strength by spreading it out across too many candidates”, said New Hampshire state Rep. Bill O’Brien, a state co-chair for Cruz.

On last night’s episode of SNL, Cruz, played by Taran Killam, mocked the candidate’s thinly-veiled dig at NY stereotypes, describing “New York values” as scenes from the 1990’s sitcom “Seinfeld”. Trump has taken to Twitter to blast Cruz in the past, a move Cruz suggested will turn off voters.

“It’s not a good thing for the country”, said Mr. Trump, who has led Republican opinion polls for months. “We should have no bailouts, ever, period, the end, and I’ve stood up and taken on the big money Washington cartel over and over and over again”, Cruz said in Monday’s interview.

“Are you essentially saying Trump is a fraud and a Democrat?” Then, Trump tried to use the issue to launch his presidential campaign.

“It is amusing seeing the media elite in NY and D.C. run around with their hair on fire wondering what on Earth are NY values?” He said Trump had attacked him because Cruz was a threat to him in Iowa.

“There are many people that are observing this race nationally [who say it] is coming more and more down to a two-man race between me and Donald Trump”, the Texas senator said on Monday during a New Hampshire campaign stop.

“If someone tells you they’re tea party, you can’t be tea party and at the same time have supported TARP”, Cruz said, using an acronym for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, a controversial Wall Street bailout program.

It looks like a close contest between Cruz’s base of religious conservatives (57 percent of caucus-goers in 2012) and Trump’s base of non-college-graduates (who could substantially increase Republicans’ previous anemic caucus turnout).

Trump continued to hit Cruz over the matter in a handful of other tweets.