Leaked Ted Cruz audio has Donald Trump readying attack

Cruz’s campaign dismissed the story as “misleading,” but Cruz himself said he would not comment on something that “may or may not have said at a private fundraiser”. Cruz asked. “Who am I comfortable having their finger on the button?”

“Both of them I like and respect”, Cruz is heard saying in the recording.

“@tedcruz should not make statements behind closed doors to his bosses, he should bring them out into the open – more fun that way!”

In turn, Cruz had been the only notable Republican candidate whom Trump has refused to insult as his rallies.

“I am leading by so much he must”, the Republican front-runner predicted.

With the exception of immigration and the blocking of Muslims at the United States border, “Trump’s actual policy positions are generally more moderate than Cruz’s, and his support within the GOP primary electorate does not look particularly ideological”, wrote Vox’s Matthew Yglesias earlier this month.

Cruz’s campaign, along with others in the GOP field, are being careful not to alienate Trump supporters because if Trump begins to decline in the polls, all would want to capture his supporters who look elsewhere. Ted Cruz, who has only spoken well of his opponent on the trail. I believe that gravity will bring both of those campaigns down.

Cruz sought to join forces with Trump by tweeting Friday that “The Establishment’s only hope: Trump & me in a cage match”.

However, with Cruz making a run at Trump in the polls, it looks as though The Donald may be getting ready to use an ill-considered comment the Texas senator made in a private meeting with supporters as an excuse to go on the attack. Trump, jiu-jitsu master, is likely to flip that around and charge that Cruz is the candidate who is fatally flawed.

Support for Cruz has been climbing, according to several recent polls.

Trump could say that Cruz’s appeal is narrow, as he excites only evangelical and very conservative voters.

The problem for Cruz, said Kondik, is that gaming out a race with more than a dozen candidates is ridiculously complicated. “Every one of us who is running is being assessed by the voters under that metric and that is exactly why we have a democratic election to make that determination”. In a two-person race, it’s a zero-sum game.